Richard Schnap - One Poem

February 12, 2013, 7:00 am

Ghost City

The bus grumbles past
A tired old man
Coughing dim memories

As the passengers look out
Photos of the missing
Waiting to be found

In a rusty landscape
Of vacant lots and weeds
A chain-linked Eden

Where earthbound angels
Stitch second-hand wings
For daydreams of flight

Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

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Sy Roth - One Poem

February 13, 2013, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Ben Newell - One Poem

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Content to Circle

Incarceration in a watery globe,
her world circumscribed by interminable circles
starting where there is no end and
ending where there are no beginnings.
Navigator of endless glass walls, uncovering nothing
Discoverer of a stretch of perpetual waters,
her reef-white rocks, and algae-capturing mesh.
A world gyres from without.
Mideast fades into another Arab spring,
they rattle their nuclear sabers, and face other fiscal cliffs.
A million tentative turns as she grows old
on her merry-go-round of tepid water.
No ah-has for this spindly, wire-legged tawpie
as she circumnavigates her convex world
where Brobdingnagians approach curiously to spy on her.
No time to brabble when she seems content to follow her circles.

Sy Roth has published in many online publications such as Bitchin’ Kitsch, Scapegoat Review, The Artistic Muse, Napalm and Novocain, Euphemism, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review,Wilderness House Journal, Aberration Labyrinth, Mindless(Muse), Avalon Literary Review and Kerouac’s Dog. Sy was selected as Poet of the Month in Poetry Super Highway, September 2012.

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Ben Newell - One Poem

February 13, 2013, 12:20 pm

≫ Next: Kristina England - One Poem

≪ Previous: Sy Roth - One Poem

Kills Roaches Dead

when I was a young writer I used to read my work to friends and family with favorable response
now I realize they were just being nice
as even thinking about those pieces is so humiliating and degrading
I have to get wasted to forget I ever penned such imbecilic garbage
inept
isn’t the word
for the swill I churned out back then . . .
these days, I read to nobody
unless you count the apt. walls
and
the dead cockroach on my kitchen floor
whose demise had absolutely nothing
to do
with my last reading
honest,
I swear

Ben Newell is a native of Jackson, Mississippi where he works as a clerk at the Wilson Library/Millsaps College. A fiction writer for most of his adult life, he recently diverted his efforts to poetry. Ben likes cold gin and hot weather.

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Kristina England - One Poem

February 16, 2013, 8:55 am

≫ Next: J.J. Campbell - One Poem

≪ Previous: Ben Newell - One Poem

Grief Revisited

Funny how the car smelled of exhaust,
how your eyes fluttered into a dream.

Funny how those fumes filled up
the chambers of your heart,

and how your last breath stuck
to the glass when I found you.

Funny how I’ve been stumbling
around in a smoke-induced haze,

and how it’s been years (years)
of me breathing without you.

Kristina England resides in Worcester, MA. Her poetry is forthcoming or published at Gargoyle, Haggard and Halloo, Strong Verse, and other magazines. For more on her poetry, visit http://kristinaengland.blogspot.com/.

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J.J. Campbell - One Poem

February 16, 2013, 2:20 pm

≫ Next: Brian Robert Kenney - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Kristina England - One Poem

A Downtown Revival

the crunch of guitars
fill the air as the sun
cracks through some
thinning clouds

the rain held off and
made for two glorious
days in a downtown
long since forgotten

i would find myself
under a tree

eyes closed and the
music from the stage
pumping through my
veins

i used to do this
years ago without
the music

under the same tree

but when you stop
doing drugs sometimes
you need a little help
climbing on those old
waves

a sick bass line from
deep in the pocket of
the 70's usually does
the trick

J.J. Campbell lives, writes but mostly dies a little each day on a farm in Brookville, Ohio. He's been widely published over the years, most notably at Chiron Review, Thunder Sandwich, Zygote in My Coffee, and Nerve Cowboy.

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Brian Robert Kenney - Two Poems

February 17, 2013, 9:00 am

≫ Next: Robert Wexelblatt - One Poem

≪ Previous: J.J. Campbell - One Poem

Tectonics

the clay pushed its way out
through the cracks
between his trembling

fingers locked in frustration at his lack
of skill of patience of new
ideas holed up in his little room

creating and destroying
a miniature world the size of his
eyeball rolled back and forth

in the press of his palms
waiting for the spirit
to descend to transform to animate

staring into nothing walls
receding expanding receding
pulsing entrancing

dreaming not dreaming
seeing not seeing
nothing appeared to him nothing

but the wall breathing something
told him to look down there
in his hands his fingers

throbbing formed a heart
shaped fist inside gripped clay
heaved up in volcanic ridges

peeking like islands above
waves clenched grinding
the teeth of a hidden key

X

when you stumble across my remains
do you stitch them together

weave them into your monologue
swaddle them in your senses

cradle the fleshy me-you
in your eye-mind

breast-lips mouthing I
do I tongue kiss you

with the sweetly rotten
breath of your lover-self

I the perfect you
in my newborn simplicity

singular arms crossed embracing
a crumpled heart long split

bones marking the spot in a plane
drawn in unspoken

X

Brian Robert Kenney is a writer and musician living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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Robert Wexelblatt - One Poem

February 19, 2013, 9:11 am

≫ Next: Ross Vassilev - One Poem

≪ Previous: Brian Robert Kenney - Two Poems

Concerto

the hero clamors against the mob,
square peg defying round holes

discord out of one and many,
concord from many and one

a child noisily rebels and
the adults play along

one rejoices to lead the dance and
others, with delight, duly cavort

help me, and they succor
fight me, and they strive

join me, and they blend
admire me, and they do

temples, mansions, bridges
are thrown up, bar by bar

showing off, out of stillness
a complicated cadenza, soaring

in the middle, pensive meditation,
the solitary borne solemnly aloft

the journey like a romance, a war,
a life, tick-tock, strife to diapason

fugato to cadence and resolution,
helter-skelter presto until

all are spent, unanimous in
silence; only then. . . applause.

Robert Wexelblatt is professor of humanities at Boston University’s College of General Studies. He has published essays, stories, and poems in a wide variety of journals, two story collections, Life in the Temperate Zone and The Decline of OurNeighborhood, a book of essays, Professors at Play; his recent novel, Zublinka Among Women, won the Indie Book Awards First Prize for Fiction.

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Ross Vassilev - One Poem

February 21, 2013, 11:40 am

≫ Next: Lisa Pelligrini - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Robert Wexelblatt - One Poem

Loveless

nothing to do and nowhere to go

while the white clouds

dance circles in the sky

and maybe the sunlight falling on the red bricks

is trying to tell me something

about the passage of time

or maybe the people walking by ignore me

cuz they know I'm insane

or maybe I'm the invisible loser

with nothing to show

but the sad ghost of my mediocrity

at any rate

I've got a three-day beard

2 bucks in my pocket

and a mind full of laughing clowns

so either my luck gets better real soon

or else it's already up.

Ross Vassilev was born in Bulgaria and now lives in Ohio.

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Lisa Pelligrini - Two Poems

February 22, 2013, 7:00 am

≫ Next: H.E. Mantel - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Ross Vassilev - One Poem

Amber Premonitions

Bloody pieces of yesterday
pick me up,
shaking off shards
of demons draped in

amber premonitions.
Jumbles of colors wrap
around each other
to create rubber band

balls that
stretch
nerves.
I pray,

not knowing for what.
I adhere to invisible shapes.
Pieces of tomorrow
will triumph.

What Lies Ahead

The crevices around my eyes
take me to places
I might only see
in the kinds of dreams
that render my body limp
when I awake.
The valleys form a maze on my face,
invisible to everyone but me.
It continues down to my throat,
where it constricts my breathing
while teaching me
and warning me
about what lies ahead.

Lisa Pellegrini is a graduate of Beaver College (now Arcadia University) with a Bachelor's degree in English. In 2005, she wrote and self-published a romantic mystery novel, Kiss the Devil Goodbye, through Borders' Personal Publishing program. She has written and published over 160 poems and short stories on www.storymash.com, a collaborative writers' website.

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H.E. Mantel - Two Poems

February 23, 2013, 8:30 am

≫ Next: Sy Roth - Four Poems

≪ Previous: Lisa Pelligrini - Two Poems

Octaobtaneous
(ex oficio ex pede Herculean)

Sabado the day
of wrest… boulevards of the
road sparkspangle like
a dim victory parade
voicers upped like the balloons

& hoods like hungry
jaws of debt hawkbarkering’ers
as a friend faster
than lunch slicker than unct for
whats you want whats they need…lots

of lots vacant grins
in shined tins pander machines
quo ex animo
lower than flags readied
for glutt & waxy car max

g’day there like that
one? a new arrival clean
an’ sweet an’ ready

t’ go this one’s a
quicksign an’ drive’r exec-
yutive got a budg’t?

she’s a foreclo…heh
trade-off hop-on…th’ keyless
model get the clue?

your house on wheels tires
just for fun kicked from under
octaobtaneous
gourmet petrol of design
no price is left out right but

sabado the day
of wrest…boulevards of the
road wax wing lots of
idlings’ time bomb tic-tic ‘til
the soup’s pee for tea an’ toast.

Rapid Transit?

A faster car, a
faster computer, faster-
acting antacid

faster service, an
Xpress check-out, a faster
return, a faster

delivery, faster
acting, living in Faster-
Land, for a faster

result, a Disney-
Whirl on the outerskirts of
Criminalsburg (past

Hurrysburg, PA)
bulletrades on the E-train
speedialed, speediern'

AlkaSeltzer burst
bubbles, bigger rude, hotter
nudes, faster foods

faster route, bigger
snout on the speedway, faster
than speeding bullets

fastern' the fast laned
SuperCurl, SupeSuperGlue!
& litmus turn blue?

Faster turnaround
time to backwards cheat, dancin’
as fast as ya can?

S L O W...
take the ES-CarGo &
drive with lobster hands

miss the plane/train/game,
& a faster break, divorce
Disney, no return

there not "Late-Late for
a very important dates,
goodbye... I'll stay &

let my fingers do
the walking", hurry-up &
wait computeless, eat

right, leftovers, fast
food not, slowfoodist moodist
fastidious, the

fastway hungray, Road-
runner/Speedy Gonzalez -
Andeleandele!

Not so swift, Johnny
ya cain't match quippin' fastern'
Jack Robinson, eh?

And buttons fasten
better without the snappin',
Snappin'!? Xpress check-

out, scan the scanner -
Queues Brevis-Vida Longa!
A fa$ter Eddie,

Fa$tCa$hFa$t on the
outerskirts of Crim'nilsburg
fastrack Fastow on

an end ron, 'cept all
for a fastdrying, faster
dissolve, Bubhub!, but

ready-set...on your
throttled Planete of the Ants
limit speed scurries

Nature don't hurry,
yet everything's accomplished
Lao Tze, yowtsayu?

But, the time for a
tasty hasty; aft, a crave

of HastyTasty?

Where ya goin' to
Ms. Hurry, Mr. Rabbit
Transit, down the hole?

Y'all know the score, don't
care to dare break It if'n
It ain't fixed, Hornk-Hornk!

H.E. Mantel-O’HaroHalola, of Hallandale Beach, Florida; published extensively in print and Internet e-zines/journals/anthologies, awaiting the publication of poetry collections, Bananas' On The Moon...A Collection Of Revisionist Haiku, & Sophistigates: A New Book Of New Poetry.

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Sy Roth - Four Poems

February 24, 2013, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Allison Grayhurst - Three Poems

≪ Previous: H.E. Mantel - Two Poems

No Words

we walked
stretched miles
without words.
when I tired
he dragged.
when I sat mulelike
he glowered.
he did not tell me where
we were going in
those endless miles,
interminable minutes.
his face read
need
and I reluctantly followed as
those dragging minutes and seconds.
in the cold
my furry collar bundled up against my face
and the warm air of my breath
quickening as time shuffled like a palsied man.
I mewled,
I whined
to no avail,
he determined to get where we were going
we passed darkened buildings
as the sun’s light waned
and my anxieties waxed--
darkened alleyways,
dark drunks lying prone,
dark peeing men,
and in the light of a streetlamp
he saw
what he desired --
his egg-shell Studebaker
nestled between a black Ford
and a red Chevrolet.
not sure which was the front or the back,
I was only pleased to be in it
after he opened the doors.
no words
only the smell of stale cigarettes
and the delight of having arrived.

Empty Room

Two brains in two large glass jars

One brain slightly smaller than the other

Each a crenellated mass of rivers

Some flowing south and others north.

Each capable of thought

One heartful and moist

The other frigid and cold.

One brain is filled with multifarious tiny boxes

Overlapping one another

Spilling ideas like a waterfall

Into the others

a morass of dizzying perplexities

splashing, noisy goblets of water

traipsing the glassy surface like a ballerina.

The other brain has far fewer boxes

That all fear bumping into the others

There’s little if any spillage

And one large box is reserved

As the empty room where quiet prevails

The box lumbers in its silence

like a bear searching the forest floor.

Talks of the Unknowable

They mischievously play footsie with little men,
tease them answerless.

Before Adam’s apocalypse
the earth, lingered with bated breath in the vast expanse.

Apples fell with silent thunks to the ground.
A train blew a plaintive whistle,

Gnostic challenge that pinged from one star to the next.
Shadows dressed walls interrogatively with cosmological demiurges of light.

They created it, hidden under the streetlamp of ego
where the other confounded finds deeper shadows.

Was there use for the other in an ephemeral world?

Human heart begs it.
The end, the beginning, of the phenomenology of life.

Adam inquires, telegraphs the question across the stars--
searches forever for the pearl,

the answers to the destruction of the Temple,
talks of the unknowable.

Her Dust Clings

I stole her paper smells and crackling turns.
Yes, and I’m proud of it; her memories are mine.
Another guiltless excursion into
promises made--I will love you forever.
Broke her cover; sat down with her for hours.
Hands lazed over her spine,
grasped her soul in my hands and became one.
Wrapped her every word in canyons of synapses,
sojourned through her verdant valleys, caressing each blade of grass,
breathed in her deliciously dusty realities.
Like a cocaine addict or a bee lusting nectar,
could not put her down, dreamed her dreams, hoarded every morsel.
Her dust clung to me,
the under-the-bed tumbleweed balls that gather unannounced.
Last page turned in sweaty withdrawal.
Back cover slapped closed, a thunderclap.
Rapid sighs fill the room with moments of her, leave little time for remorse.
I’m through, she’s read, on to the next.

Sy Roth has published in many online publications such as Bitchin’ Kitsch, Scapegoat Review, The Artistic Muse, Napalm and Novocain, Euphemism, Ascent Aspirations, Fowl Feathered Review,Wilderness House Journal, Aberration Labyrinth, Mindless(Muse), Avalon Literary Review andKerouac’s Dog. Sy was selected as Poet of the Month in Poetry Super Highway, September 2012.

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Allison Grayhurst - Three Poems

February 27, 2013, 10:41 am

≫ Next: Erren Geraud Kelly - One Poem

≪ Previous: Sy Roth - Four Poems

Gone Blind

Gone blind down
the road that leads to
serenity. Cannot find
the open casket of my
awakening or the joy of exile.
Damned and committing to
the poorest of temples –
ruby like a miscarriage,
like a red flag at half mast
the spasm of a studied darkness
emerges in my mouth like a thrill
worth all its pleasure.
Everything but the torment is unclear
and that is my stigmatism, my success
and my heroic danger,
that is the sunny day I never find.
But the foliage of my terrain is too familiar
to be trouble, though my eyes remain as shells
where once a glorious creature flourished.

First and Only

The first time I found you
at the doughnut shop with the perfect beauty of youth and torment
absorbed in every feature and in every movement
of your astounding eyes, I knew I found an eternal friend, a lover for every stage.
The first time you sang I felt a journey,
a hope for fulfillment, a fiery and unexpected happiness.
The first hug we shared on the church steps
as the music played below was like a wave, strong and soothing
rippling along my back and arms.
Our first kiss outside the café, when the rain was about to fall, told me there would be
no number on our days, no greater gift but to feel this – our lips once a part
but now vibrant, like a new being – whole.
Our first laugh together as we drank our coffee told us
the depths we shared could be lightened by one another,
gave us more than important conversation, gave us
a rope to sometimes swing on and to always hold.
Our two children born was more than a bluejay on our shoulders,
more than any joy gone before, bringing us and still bringing us
further into one another’s arms.
We are the blessed ones, the ones blessed by a moving indelible love.
And here I am, overwhelmed by grace,
counting on nothing but on what we have,
strangely at peace like the peace I found
the time I first found you.

Lost Shadow

When the song started
and the dream was torn from its socket then
placed on the sidewalk,
the light from the window broke
and in came the lost shadow.
I saw that shadow but stared it down
thinking it would only last a short season –
The shadow stayed, made its way behind
bookshelves and old picture frames.
Since then I can’t say what is a reflection and what is truly bright.
The favorite plan has burned in the meadow,
the secondary one has too.
If we are right, we cannot touch it.
If we are wrong, the sum of all our efforts
and discoveries is naught.
I enter the shadow then I too am left without definition.
I found at times there is nowhere else to go but further in,
further obliterating my clarity. That is a grey day for the dream.
Other days God whispers in my ear to hold my head up
and count my gifts. That is the day of perfect weather
when the shadow stays under the bathtub
and tomorrow is fine.

Over the past twenty years Allison Grayhurst’s poems have been published in over 120 journals throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and in the United Kingdom. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers, a Porcepic Book, in Vancouver in 1995. Since then she has published nine other books of poetry and two collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was recently published by above/ground press December 2012. She lives in Toronto with her husband, two children, two cats, and a dog. She also sculpts, working with clay.

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Erren Geraud Kelly - One Poem

February 27, 2013, 11:19 pm

≫ Next: Tito Kohout - Three Poems

≪ Previous: Allison Grayhurst - Three Poems

The Song of the Siren

When miles blew his wretched horn
Little did he know
His trumpet’s wail
Would be the call of
The siren
Trees would break out
With your poetry
Rivers would change their
Course, so that their flow
Would follow the
Curves of your back
And your name
Would be synominous
With voodoo

Erren Geraud Kelley is a poet based in Chicago. His work appeared in over three dozen publications including, Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, Poetry Magazine (online) and other publications. He is the author of the chapbook " Disturbing The Peace," on Night Ballet Press.

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Tito Kohout - Three Poems

March 1, 2013, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Mark Leci - Four Poems

≪ Previous: Erren Geraud Kelly - One Poem

Icarus

Icarus flutters and falls to the waves
which embrace him and rock him to sleep in their hold
but never will honor his dark unmarked grave.

His children, unborn, would prepare him a cave
in a mountain's dark heart where the shadows are cold.
Instead now he flutters and falls to the waves.

With wings on his arms, helpless Daedalus raves
at the sun, which ignores him, and sinks into gold:
to lie like his son in a dark unmarked grave.

He rues his hands' work, unable to save
his one shining son, so young and so bold,
who's fluttering, faltering into the waves,

and imagines those children the son never gave
to his father, who flies on alone to grow old,
and always will honor the dark unmarked grave,

not knowing the dive of the foolish and brave
will plummet through time, generations untold,
as Icarus flutters and falls to the waves,
which never will honor his dark unmarked grave.

The Moon

I'm low and gold in a thick sky
that now diminishes my luster. I
can't see you through polluted air,
a barrier too firm for hope or prayer
to breach. Remember when you said
that I'm the rind of some round fruit that's dead,
the promise of its circular
perfection, of its bloom deferred?
It could be that I'll never wax
again. It could be that these changing tacks
will bear me off into the night
on unknown winds controlled by darkness' might.
Then I'll wane, concave, until I've gone
away to where discarded gods, now wan
and feeble, lie in fitful dreams,
'til like the kraken, they arise in screams
to smash the earth, to make the noon
so black and starless that there's only moon.

Idyll

When the sky's cerulean uniformity
pales only where it kisses
a grayly permeable horizon,

when the crispness of skin freshly scrubbed
in limpid rivulets trickling down over limestone beds
from the frigid mountains' shoulders is
the only smell in predatory nostrils,

when even the breeze rattling
the nervous leaves of the crepe myrtles
and junipers on ridges
or in creekbeds below waits
with bated breath and the silence grows so absolute
that the ears fill themselves
with tinnitus to know
they're not yet deaf,

does this mean you love me?

Tito Kohout is an Austin native and University of Texas graduate. He works as a solar installer.

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Mark Leci - Four Poems

March 2, 2013, 8:30 am

≫ Next: Ron Riekki - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Tito Kohout - Three Poems

Typo

somewhere in this layered
cubist collage of touch
it is possible
if one peers from the right angle
to separate
three bodies
pry apart the tessellating edges -
divide this flesh into separate forms
but for a moment
we
linked together
a lifeline drawn in blood
for a brief pulse
a quartz vibration
there is something akin to perfection
in this movement
but
then you collapse back
into your mind
the thoughts return
of how his body is such
styled and flowing
copperplate in the square-nibbed pen
and red ink so distinctive
those complex German adjectives
seem to ripple across him
he is a living calligraphy
and she so
clear and radiant
freehand
she bends light towards her
like glass
it follows the waveforms
of the boundaries between
her and not-her
of what is sadness to touch
and what is nothing
your body is so
covered with corrections
rewrites and editing marks
the edges all noise
ink bleeds into the white fibres
from
the shouting of the fights
that made a simple skin
into this memoir, battleground
each skip dull version of
scratches between the grooves of the record
he holds it up to the light to test if it is warped
tosses it away
this is something too far from perfect

Steam Baths

An old man
Levers himself into
The hot bath
With the slowness
Of flowers blooming,
Steam dreamily blurring the room childlike and careless,
Coffee perfectly dripping into an empty pot.

And the lowering of his body
Contains the unspilled passion
Of bursting muscle,
Scalding liquid drifting over the wooden counter,
Flowers exploding along winter’s edge,
The old man screaming
For the muscles to do his bidding,
And a teenage boy
Still as ancient ligament,
His chest suddenly,
Tellingly, flushed.

Road Scholar

with stratified hands
circlets of dirt
echo the blurred
rubbed
whorls of his fingertips
he smudges the yellowing lining
breathes as it oxidizes
runs a crooked finger
over justified columns
thin color diagrams
and broad pages
he is blank and wide as
prairie margins
this lonely
road scholar
retells the parable of the scorpion
shoes fading camouflage
with the bitumen
tree roots
veins
cracks in concrete face
unsure which page to read
he stares into blank
space
like Picasso's blue family
the moving finger
smooths the creased pages
with a hard black fingernail
traces the scrawled notes
with empty pen
frail amalgam of feeling
his books are out of date
and the world turns
faster than he can run

Nothing

The last time
I sat and did nothing
Or read a book
Without time whining
Through the hourglass
Like a vacuum

Snow was
Deep over
Italy

Franco was
Toddling in
His garden

Old potatoes
Were still new

The dragonflies
Were kick-starting
Their wings on
The back porch
Running ink
Into tiny grooves
Like a record

8-track was
The wave of
The future
Clicks and
Syncs

Certain girls
Would be
Expected to have
Both long gloves
And cigarette holders

You were
A tiny neon
Bud
And nobody
Touched you

Mark Leci’s writing is strongly influenced by such diverse fields as chemistry, music, physics and computer programming. He lives alone in Calgary.

↧

Ron Riekki - Two Poems

March 11, 2013, 12:01 pm

≫ Next: Donal Mahoney - One Poem

≪ Previous: Mark Leci - Four Poems

Reap I

Death is a little bit confused today.
It’s a little bit early for confusion
considering He knows the future,

but He puts down his head to think.
“Death,” I say, for if I could keep
from being dug under the green,

there’d be nothing I wouldn’t
absolutely do. “Death, who wants
more sorrow today? Let’s eat souls

later. For now, whirligig. Go to a shoe
shop. Get pizza. Anything.” But Death
says, All my souls are old stars. His voice

feels like the end. As if the how never was.
I think many, Death says, I think many have
gone to church for the first time today.

And then, into the green, another. Beside
Death is my dear mother. Dear. And green.
The green before you were born.

Much Better Pay Than Minimum Wage
(Beijing, February 4, 2012)

Erin says, “China has more prostitutes per square inch

than any other country in the world. The brilliant thing

is that you could come here and—if you’re blind enough—
think there aren’t any. It’s not like street hookers in the U.S.

where it’s so painfully obvious the police are being paid off
that you have to grab your children and tuck their eyes

under your arms.” He takes a sip of coffee and goes
into the meeting with the cigarette company.

Ron Riekki's next book is The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works, Wayne State University Press, May, 2013.

↧

Donal Mahoney - One Poem

March 19, 2013, 9:37 pm

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Caseworker: Yams and Plantain

Cabrini-Green
The Housing Project
Summer in Chicago

Bienvenido’s comin’ over,
says his wife,
to ‘splain me

why the kids
have got no rice,
no beans,

how the landlord’s
shovin’ notes beneath
the door again.

In Puerto Rico Bienvenido
dug up yams,
was paid in plantain,

came over here,
brought his wife,
then his kids.

First New York,
then Chicago,
gave up yams,

gave up plantain,
just to drum
and make a living.

Nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, Donal Mahoney has had work published in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found here: http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

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Edward Alexander - One Poem

March 21, 2013, 9:48 pm

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By Grace

The breath by grace
drawn down
through the wind,
continuous the movement.

A baby born new
held swaddled in a loving
mothers gentle embrace.

Or perhaps it was harder
than that
and you were the one
dropped down
on the ragged ground.
To reach out,
to take hold,
to suck on life’s bitter tit.

Continuous the movement,
the breath by grace
drawn down
through the wind.

Poet and storyteller Edward Alexander lives in a small town close to Austin, Texas where he writes and makes furniture of his own designs. His short stories have been published recently by Black Lantern Publishing, Lady Ink Magazine, 34th Parallel and poetry by The Mas Tequila Review, The Chaffey Review and Poets River Jounral.

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Wanda Morrow Clevenger - Two Poems

March 22, 2013, 10:05 pm

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Circus Flaminius

Not even Moses wrote the sin of Eve;
anonymous product
a 5th century wag of unjust finger, and
the brethren shout hallelujah at
Sodom and Gomorrah virgin sacrifice.

Now new charlatans circle for the kill;
televised Circus Flaminius
public stoning of woman's womb―
Kirk Cameron trips over his tongue.

Penis People

Until accused that time
right to my face of being a tease
―before I knew how and when to work it―
work the stuff I had, such as it was,
I hadn't given tease credence;

and until the waitress tips, sacred tokens for wearing
Sacajawea braids that one customer liked awfully much
and said so to my red cheeks;

and later still the lame one-liners
so diabolically lame;

it hadn't occurred that
I wasn't the tease, but skillfully teased into
a plaything for the penis people.

Author Wanda Morrow Clevenger has placed over 185 pieces of work in 67 markets.

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Clyde L. Borg - One Poem

March 24, 2013, 10:24 pm

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The Good Old Young

They hold on to life
Like some leaves tend to do
On winter deadened trees
That once were
Splendidly green.
They resist the iciness
Of the gray winter
By feigning warmth
In gloved hands,
And layer upon layer
Of clothing.
They seek inclusion,
But often reject it
For fear of impeding
The activity of others.
They listen, observe,
And look again,
Inwardly judging,
But then only sighing
With abject resignation.
They are the aged,
The old that were young,
The good old young
That cling to life.

Clyde L. Borg is a retired high school teacher and administrator. Some of his work has appeared in History Magazine, Fate Magazine, The Rambler and Capper's Magazine. He resides in Fords, New Jersey.

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