Andrew Darlington - One Poem

April 26, 2015, 8:00 am

You'll Never Find A Gay In Catholic Church

‘After 200 years of Mass
we’ve got as far as poison gas…’ (Thomas Hardy)

Our father who art not necessarily in heaven
hallowed be thy name… but only up to a point…
this is my prayer for all you holy-phoney gospel-preaching moral majority
well-respected evangelists who curse out your neighbours and damn sinners,
sorting spiritual e-numbers from chaff and theological sheep from goats,
may your Lord have mercy on your soul, for I have none – you’re bound for hell,
this is my prayer for all you child-abusing born-again porn-downloading-again
god delusion creationist clergy who visit massage-parlours and maintain discrete
assignations in motels for the laying on of hands in stations of the crass,
I don’t forgive you fathers, for you have sinned – you’re bound for hell,
this is my prayer for all you fake-Catholic sisters of no-mercy who take the pill,
use condoms, fail to procreate, whose sacred causes oppose stem-cell research,
same-sex unions and a woman’s right to choose, no bunch of our fathers
and mumbled hail marys will buy you off this time – you’re bound for hell too,
this is my prayer for obese indulgers who pig out on junk-food and chocolate,
you poets who commit blasphemous rhyme writing verse that doesn’t scan,
you asylum-seekers, rough-sleepers, furtive smokers, dope-smokers, binge
drinkers, coke-drinkers, coke-sniffers, glue-sniffers – you’re already in hell,
this is my prayer for all you slacker youth who self-harm, self-abuse,
substance-abuse, pick your nose, play emo, play gangsta, play x-box,
and hang out in hoodies on street corners – you’re probably in hell too,
with all those unbaptised dead babies, bastards, adulterers, civil partners,
junkies and whores who reside in unforgiving purgatory for eternity,
this is my prayer, blessed are all you atheists, humanists, rationalists,
Darwinians, pacifists, vegetarians, agnostics, pansexuals,
pagans, heretics, blasphemers, apostates, unbelievers,
recidivists, free-thinkers, doubters, and waverers,
for the rest, come at me, ye legion of horrors
for I would willingly slay thee all,
there is neither fear in my heart
nor compassion in my eyes,
face it, you chose the wrong salvation
you’re all bound for hell…

Andrew Darlington has had masses of material published in all manner of strange and obscure places, magazines, websites, anthologies and books. He's also worked as a Stand-Up Poet on the‘Alternative Cabaret Circuit’, and interviewed many people from the worlds of Literature, SF-Fantasy, Art and Rock-Music for a variety of publications.

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Julie Gates - One Poem

April 27, 2015, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Robert F. Gross - Two Poems

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Chasm

The fissure in the broken frame of my winter,
Hewn from molding, gray, aged elm,
Cracks the mirror holding me captive, hanging,
Crooked, crammed in the corner, clothed in cobwebs,
Where the wispy bones of a deadly spider
Still loiter,
Until the hour the jagged silver fingers
Growing the crevice
Spin a fractured web,
Become a kaleidoscope,
And my steel cold prison crashes down the steep slope
With the clamor of an avalanche
Sending shockwaves of spindly shards
Over brittle brown earth,
Spiking the solid surface,
Seeking the chasm concealing life—
What was trapped between wood and glass
Soars.

Dr. Julie Gates has directed the English Education program at Angelo State University for the past 13 years. She is also a creative nonfiction specialist and a creative writer. Her poetry has appeared in Carcinogenic Poetry, Concho River Review, and Visions with Voices.

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Robert F. Gross - Two Poems

April 28, 2015, 7:30 am

≫ Next: Trish Saunders - One Poem

≪ Previous: Julie Gates - One Poem

Demolition Job

standing too long
totally unsafe
incredibly massive
work of a lifetime

take it down

strip off safety gear
work naked
step in close
breathe what’s toxic
unlearn limits

finger lines of least resistance
find the fissures
wire the charges up close
lick them like a lover

sunburst

blast though the heart valves
blow out the memory plaque
spatter the bio over the big picture
reduce expectations to rubble

blackout

spit on what remains
piss on your ruins
let bitter weeds take root
admit the snakes

moonrise

In the Sewing Room

All of it is familiar but none of it is known;
I don’t know any of their names.
The daydream figures of the dolls on the shelf:
Indian princess, mammy, sweater girl, silent
Movie star miniature with corkscrew curls.
I don’t know how they came to be here--
In the sewing room/guest room looking down
On this bed with all these swollen, lacy pillows.
I don’t know if they are companions or collectibles,
Given as gifts or picked up at rummage sales.
I don’t know if they’re décor or confidantes.
But they must be recollections of this home
That I pass homeless through. I do not touch
Unless I receive invitations, and they are mute.

Robert F. Gross gave up his apartment, car, and his possessions, except three suitcases of stuff, in October 2013. He's been wandering about with one suitcase of stuff ever since. He writes, directs, performs, and is on the lookout for meaning.

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Trish Saunders - One Poem

April 29, 2015, 7:30 am

≫ Next: Tendai R. Mwanaka - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Robert F. Gross - Two Poems

You Knew I Was Home, Ignoring the Bell

I would have invited you in but
there was a black dog looking
calmly at me in the mirror
after the doctor suggested I give up
chocolates and coffee --
the very things I wake up craving. Then

CNN confirmed for me the dread--
making news that a wild elephant
is slaughtered every 20 minutes. I say,
a wild elephant dies every 20 minutes to
satisfy demand from China according to
my television. The word "insatiable” was used.

I am beginning to despise you,
ancient and beautiful land of scholars
and warriors and Wu Wei--think we don't know
your fabled herbal remedies include
powder from the black rhinoceros horn?
Your reply came quickly:
American buffaloes. Florida manatees. Hawaiian crows.

Yes, the door is invitingly open now,
the black dog
refuses to leave.

Trish Saunders lives and writes in Seattle and Honolulu and (in her imagination) Paris, France during the 1920s. She’s been published in Off The Coast, Blast Furnace Press, Dead Snakes, Silver Birch Press.

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Tendai R. Mwanaka - Two Poems

May 1, 2015, 1:42 pm

≫ Next: Ronald J. Pelias - One Poem

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The War

I have decided to leave this city of war. The war has gone out of
          control. You never know who belongs to whom,
                  anymore. What the fight is all about.
                           The war is still dragging on its
                                   fiery tail through the
                                          dead city like
                                                some
giant prehistoric creature. I take a maze of trail, which threads
       its way out of the city, through the unchecked growth
             and rubbish. I keep walking, leaving the images
                   of the city, into the wilderness. The sky
                         is layers of cotton-thick smoke.
                              Wild, cross-bred thorny
                                      roses, scraggly
                                                Aloe
plants, hollyhocks, and emaciated chrysanthemums dotes the
            trail. Sprigs of tamarisk, sprigs of furze, herbs still
                   exuding scents, the grass is singing dirges
                         around my feet, as I pass between
                                air’s legs, it snakes a hiss,
                                    a bark. I begin to see,
                                         to feel another
                                                  war
in these species difficult and deeper into great piles of life
      fomenting. An irresistible occasion, this garland of
               demonstrations! Morning glories, their
                     purple flowers look down on the
                           melee much as generals
                                  observe their wars
                                       whilst others
                                                are
doing the actual fighting. These generals are the ravishment of
      their own extending success, a display. The wheat fields
             weaving brushstrokes of their pride, they dance
                    and shout as of people of a ceaselessly
                             bombed city when it’s freed.
                                     Rose bushes poised
                                          like ballerinas,
                                                   a
     choreography which gathers them in front of the
        forsythia. Quack grass, thistle, cockleburs and
                 black eyed Susan: are the privates,
                         sergeants, lieutenants,
                                   and captains;
                                        fighting
                                             the
war for the generals, the morning glories. This war does not
    pace itself, space itself…, for it is self contained in itself.

If You Are Going

If you are going
Linger a little while
Like the setting sun’s rays
Touching the coming night

If you are going
Touch the coming night

If you are going
Linger a little while
Kiss me good night
Hold me for the last time

If you are going
Hold me for the last time

If you are going
Linger a little while
Say you care a little
Come for good-bye

If you are going
Come for a good-bye

Tendai. R. Mwanaka is a multidisciplinary artist from Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe. His oeuvre of works touches on literary disciplines (non-fictions, poetry, plays, fictions), music and sound art disciplines, visual art disciplines (photography, drawings, paintings, video, collage). His work has been published in over 300 journals, anthologies and magazines in over 27 countries. Nominated, shortlisted and won some prizes and work has been translated into French and Spanish.

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Ronald J. Pelias - One Poem

May 2, 2015, 1:14 pm

≫ Next: Joel Best - One Poem

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Bien

One hundred fifteen years
I carried my name,
Santiago Lazaro Perez,
gave it to a good wife
who now sits near
our dear Lady of Guadalupe
and to nine children, all
but two who I had to bury.
No está bien.

Now, I worked my patch
of banana, citrus, and mango,
worked everyday of my life.
So bent
I could hardly pick.
Had to use my cane to reach
what I could not.
And each day I’d lug
with each full crate
the pain of an old body.
No está bien.

So, I took the ladder
I climbed so many times
to the orange grove,
set it against the nearest tree,
went up, tied a rope,
and pushed the ladder away.
My weight on my neck
pulled me straight again.
I swung, proud.
Está bien.

Ronald J. Pelias’s poems have appeared in a number of journals, including Small Pond, Midwest Poetry Review, Margie, and Whetstone. His most recent books, Leaning: A Poetics of Personal Relations (Left Coast Press) and Performance: An Alphabet of Performative Writing (Left Coast Press), call upon the poetic as a research strategy.

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Joel Best - One Poem

May 3, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Jonathan Butcher - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Ronald J. Pelias - One Poem

Halfway There

my first night in the new world
a storm marches in from beyond the gray mountains
perhaps from as far as the sea of red glass
the wind speaks in tongues
the green moon is full
the storm maneuvers like angry soldiers
this tempest is a search for conquest
i’m lucky to be inside a tent
when the first raindrops fall
i am safe within a protective sheathe
listening as the wind
thrashes in frustration
the tent swells and shrinks
a laboring lung
the storm outside
attempts to rearrange reality
weather is an artist
painting the earth with unfathomable brush
hoping to paint me as well
into a composition some might find
displeasing

Joel Best has published in venues such as Atticus, decomP, Autumn Sky and Quick Fiction.He lives in upstate New York with his wife and son.He is the author of the collections “The Dogs Are Gone,” “Timeline,” “12 White Lies,” available at Smashwords.

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Jonathan Butcher - Two Poems

May 4, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Larry Duncan - One Poem

≪ Previous: Joel Best - One Poem

Our Last Walk

Under the shadow of that imposing grey mass of steel

and concrete, we make the drink filled promises of ill

thought out reunions, that never for a sober minute

would ever be considered rational.

Your fingers clamped to the cigarette papers, now slightly

aged and cracked, your wit now seems cut with the weakest

substitute, just like your powders; diluted beyond recognition

and you assumed we didn't notice.

That scar upon your left cheek that you would finger when

making a point, the bottle circulating next to your knee.

We would pray for an encompassing silence, to stifle the

fear drawn from your credulity.

The bruises left on rib cages like rain stained rose petals,

answered any question asked incorrectly, but we have now all

caught up with your withered expectations, but under this warming

sun now even your shadow looks old.

Obvious

On that beach after last orders, the damp sand remaining

stable under our intoxicated feet. That smile of yours as

brittle as the shattered shells beneath our heels, the broken

homes of now long excluded occupants.

It had taken an age it seemed to reach this pinnacle, like a

gapping wound that was never stitched and left to turn septic.

I now bask the clichéd result that was promised for so many

decades and was now slowly delivered.

To seek an end seemed superfluous, to take advantage of

those Friday night vows which were welded together like

rusted chains, and to pass them through the loop of a paper

ring that tears at the first spot of rain.

We stagger up the concrete steps in cold, bare feet; your laugh

now as dark as the boarded-up shop fronts on the horizon. Any

light now completely absorbed, and as you move forward for

that last kiss, I stub my toe for the second time.

Jonathan Butcher has had poetry appear in a wide range of online and print publications, including: Electric Windmill Press, The Rusty Nail, Belleville Park Pages, Dead Beats, Underground Voices, Gutter Eloquence, Dead Snakes and others. His second chapbook 'Broken Slates' has been published by Flutter Press. He lives in Sheffield, England.

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Larry Duncan - One Poem

May 5, 2015, 10:25 am

≫ Next: Jack E. Lorts - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Jonathan Butcher - Two Poems

Saint Lucy Lost Her Bowl

Saint Lucy brushes against me
as I order another Bushmills,
her eyes in her hands.
She has lost her golden dish.
After all, the Dark Ages
ended in the advent of perspective—
bodies piled on the steps of the Academy,
every face bearded, every hand and finger
curled along the concept of a ground,
save the cracked blue sky between
Adam and the hidden phallus of God.
My favorite Cubism being
the slow slope just below the waist
punctuated by the bone of the hip
and “My mother is a Fish.”
This is a mystery
unavailable for digestion
or search engine complicity.
I don’t understand these directions.
They don’t exist between the bottles
or on my walk back home.
I got her in the corner booth
after I took her hands
and she lifted her skirt so I could see.
There are dimensions curled tighter
than either Michelangelo
or Da Vinci could imagine.
This is a mystery.
I like the way they sigh
with their throats between my thumbs
but my mother said a man’s feet
were made for standing,
particularly when a woman needs a seat.
“We never really touch,” she says.
My hand working like a fulcrum
between her thighs. “It’s all
repulsion of electromagnetic fields.”
This is a mystery.
The way she covets her breasts
and laughs when I become a child
at the sight of them. Don’t even
get me started on the Pre-Raphaelites.
There are too many lilies in that water.
Of course, Botticelli is the best
but my softness lies in the penitent
kneeling beside the bedside
of pornographic swells. Their hearts
and holes plastered to mimic design
along the walls of the next whiskey hall.

Larry Duncan currently lives in the smallest apartment in Long Beach, CA. In 2010, he received his MFA from California State University, Long Beach. His poetry and fiction has appeared in various print and online publications, including Juked, the Mas Tequila Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Bank Heavy Press, and the Fat City Review. His Chapbook Crossroads of Stars and White Lightning is available through Arroyo Secco Press. You can learn more about Larry and check out links to his other poetry at his website http://larrydunc.wix.com/larry-Duncan.

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Jack E. Lorts - Two Poems

May 7, 2015, 11:12 am

≫ Next: Scott Laudati - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Larry Duncan - One Poem

Ephram Pratt Extolls Billiard Balls of Dust

Encased in silence
like wings on

an invisible bird,
the lions of redress

unleash themselves
into broad strokes

of an isolated burgess
welcomed into

the invisible by
a lack of industry

and elasticity
misdirected to

the ancient sunlight
flowing into fountains

of incremental lightning
intrigued by a

multitude of stoppages,
cleansing the fingers

of a withered hand,
blasted in a

salt peter function of
billiard balls despairing,

lazily crooning in a
voice of dust.

Ephram Pratt Admits to Fawning Acclivity

Enticed by an elegance
of shared darkness,

of lights appearing
on the horizon

of a coming of age
dream, bucolic & broken,

like an incidence
of irregularity

needled and enfolded
in silence;

let the brokenness
of a fatal lament

seek out the messengers,
seek out what we know

but whisper softly
only on days numbered

in the Book of Life,
the Book of Hezekiah

sewn backwards
into a sullen scripture,

betoken by acclivity
and beckoned

into silence by
a never waning sky.

Jack E. Lorts, a retired educator, lives in a small remote town in eastern Oregon. He’s appeared widely, if infrequently over the past 40+ years, recently on-line in Haggard & Halloo, Elohi Gadugi, Dead Snakes, etc. Active in Democratic politics, he’s run for the Oregon House of Representatives and was mayor of Fossil, Oregon, population 479, for many years.

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Scott Laudati - Two Poems

May 10, 2015, 11:59 am

≫ Next: Stephen Jarrell Williams - One Poem

≪ Previous: Jack E. Lorts - Two Poems

Men

i never
questioned that
my father was a
real man; he
could do
those
things. things
weaker fathers couldn’t
(give a funeral
speech without
tearing, build a shed
and fill it
with tools
he knew how
to use).
things
they say
make a man.

my father
had no doubt
that
i was not a man,
had none of the
qualities
and didn’t show
much hope
of figuring it out.

he liked to
say, “you think
you just flush
a toilet
and it goes
away?
what’s going to
happen when it doesn’t
go away
and it comes back
and you and all your
idiot
friends are drowning
in poop?
you’re all
gonna
die because
you don’t even know
how to use
a toilet
plunger.
you’ll see.”

his brother
was the same.
he wrestled
in high school
and he
always said it
taught him
things but as
far as I could
tell he did
everything wrong.

they both had
a favorite
place
to give
advice.
on the couch.
during
football commercials.

i found
it hard to concentrate
on words
men spoke
while watching other
men
throw balls
at each other
and try
their hardest
to lay on
the most
submissive one.

sports.
this was
supposed
to be the triumph
of all men,
and every sunday
my dad
would yell
and cry,
never giving any thought
to after
the game, when
all
forty of them took one big
shower together.

Something Like Love

i miss you
blue eyes
lying in your
bed
while you walked
across campus
looking at
jersey mountains
rolling away from your path
like the sleeping stomachs
of giant buddhas
and me staying
warm
making the bed
so we could unmake it
using your roommates
teapot to bring
your small bones back to
life
and your soft skin
under my heat
it could be love you said

you hate me now
blue eyes
you used the
bruises of your old
lovers to build back
something more
and i let my old
loves leave me
with less
i could see
no dark spots
in you
but my pain
needed company
and when once
you thought
love could conquer
by our epitaph
your eyes
held the ruin of
an idea
abandoned
it could’ve been love you said

who are we now
blue eyes?
i’ve erased
the words and the doubt
i only remember
how your cat ran away
every time i opened the door
and even though
your dad was
a cop i tried
to like him anyway
we had no vices
then
we could go
to the zoo sober
and smile at turtles
and pet giraffes
that night we drove all night
i reminded you of
those turtles
who seemed to smile back
and we rolled
and kissed
and ignored our sins
and once again
we talked about
forever
i always try and
go back to
that night i let you
get on the plane
and you left me
and new jersey behind
it can still be love
i said

i always try and go back to that night
in my mind
in my songs
because
it was something like love
we were something like love

Scott Laudati lives in NYC with his boxer, Satine. He is the author of "Hawaiian Shirts In The Electric Chair". Visit him @ www.scottlaudati.com

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Stephen Jarrell Williams - One Poem

May 15, 2015, 11:35 am

≫ Next: Darren C. Demaree - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Scott Laudati - Two Poems

Indisputable

It’s bad in here

Cramped in one room the size of a walk-in closet with all my stuff

My computer screen the main light

The lone window smeared over with black paint peeling

Some streetlight peeping a peppering of glows through the holes

Mattress on the floor taking up the majority of walking space

All my clothes piled on each side of my bed like banks on a river

A bottle of water and two cans of tomato soup along the wall

Two coupons for hamburgers at the corner fast-food joint

No miniature refrigerator

No Styrofoam ice chest

No bicycle

But

My ex-wife sent a letter

Said she didn’t hate me as much anymore

I still keep a picture of her in my wallet

Starting a new part-time job tomorrow

Maybe the boss won’t be a back-stabbing weasel

I’ll get on the internet Saturday in the library

I’ll send this poem to some poetry site and hopefully they’ll post it

Maybe someone will read it and identify with me

Have a little chuckle and dream of how things use to be.

Stephen Jarrell Williams loves to write in the middle of the night with a grin and a grimace and flame in his heart. He is the editor of Dead Snakes at deadsnakes.blogspot.com

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Darren C. Demaree - Two Poems

May 23, 2015, 11:54 am

≫ Next: Emily Tuttle - One Poem

≪ Previous: Stephen Jarrell Williams - One Poem

Nude Male With Echo #53

It is less Greek
to say I feel the world
much more through my feet
than I ever have
from the sun above
& though my skin does pink
under the harsh blessing
of the old god,
I am home most of all
with bare feet headed nowhere
in particular
on a forgotten field.

Nude Male With Echo #54

When the bird finally shook
out of the weathering
in my chest, it flew away
to exercise the way my heart does,
without mystery
& without understanding
that there never was a mystery.
That bird flies to the sun
& assumes all of that heat
was born amidst his own wings.

Darren C. Demaree has appeared, or is scheduled to appear in numerous magazines/journals, including the South Dakota Review, Meridian, The Louisville Review, Diagram, and the Colorado Review. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology.

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Emily Tuttle - One Poem

May 26, 2015, 8:00 am

≫ Next: Michael Lee Johnson - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Darren C. Demaree - Two Poems

Through The Looking Glass

I had a dream last night that you were waiting
at my grandmother’s.

A huge tree was in the middle of the kitchen,
trunk so huge you had to climb it to get from
the oven to the stove top,
and you were using the apples hanging firmly from the ceiling,
to make a pie.

Your body was full and flush again and your eyes—
The eyes you got from my grandmother
and that my mother got from her
and that I got from all of you,
stare back at me like a looking glass.

Light catching on the layers of hues
embracing and floating in your iris like oil and water—
Dark navy blue jeans and the sky blue dress I tore
jumping from the back of your green pickup
the day it wouldn’t stop raining—

Before I speak, you smile
and you ask me how my day was.
I say good and do you need help with the pie
and you say yes and we talk.
We’re slicing apples with our fingernails,
little fruits and buds we pluck from our kitchen tree
and I am loving it, loving you, so much that I don’t notice
that the apples are growing brown,
or that your white blonde hairs,
bleached from 1000 Finnish nights,
are falling, calmly,
on the crust.

Emily Tuttle is an English undergraduate at the University of Maryland, minoring in Creative Writing and Neuroscience. She is part of the campus’s living and learning program for writers, Jimenez-Porter Writers’ House, and managing editor of Paper Shell Review, the on campus journal of analytical essays. She has an upcoming publication in Stylus, the University of Maryland literary magazine, and has been awarded the honorable mention for the Jimenez-Porter Literary Prize.

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Michael Lee Johnson - Two Poems

May 27, 2015, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Tamer Mostafa - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Emily Tuttle - One Poem

Abandoned

Indiana farmhouse

abandoned

except old

grandfather clock

dusty corner

pendulum

motionless-

still all family

memories remain

hidden behind

that face.

Common Church Poem

Sitting here in this pew

splinters in my butt

I spend hours in silent prayer.

I beg Jesus for a quiet life.

Breathing here is so serene.

Sounds of vespers, so beautiful

dagger, so alone, unnoticed.

You can hear Saints

clear their eardrums

Q-Tips cleanse mine.

I hear their scandals

I review mine.

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, freelance writer, photographer who experiments with poetography (blending poetry with photography), and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois, who has been published in more than 875 small press magazines in 27 countries, he edits 9 poetry sites. Michael is the author of The Lost American: "From Exile to Freedom," and several chapbooks of poetry.

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Tamer Mostafa - Two Poems

May 28, 2015, 7:30 am

≫ Next: Douglas Campbell - Two Poems

≪ Previous: Michael Lee Johnson - Two Poems

Consensus

There’s always been a working class
and cycles of economic instability.
The newspapers call them crises. The downturn
of the seventies, inland industrialization, wedding ring—
ziplock exchanges on the downtown strip
before Cobra beers added the King to the title.

This city is in competition—with larger metropolitan
areas and it fares at the top—top three in most
categories. Nation and State to be correct. Police—
included, circling the rough spots, pocketing
cash from the runners, and handing back the rocks
before curling in front of their squad car vents.

Some numbers don’t make the statistics cut:
gun metal clips, trigger guards, and other parts
stashed in park garbage cans. The psychotics
rising from their codeine lows
who stumble upon the rusted offerings
while rummaging for something to eat.

And there are just
bystanders playing the part of jurors in a place
where there is no testimony and the judge has left
to prune geraniums, pick lemons, sip Manhattans
next to the terrace of his coastal mansion.

Stockton

“some rivers flow back
toward the beginning
i never learned to swim”
-Lucille Clifton

i was born
in a northern valley
of California
c is for current

there are more i’s
in california
than i have
siblings

the deltas undertones
stir a shirt to the surface

near the banks
a bucket of quick dry cement
waits
for its possessor

why am i here

the top of stockton
floats into the drought
of dry crinkled vines
the wine is a sharp white

they are still here
lurking in the cattails

captain weber
commodore stockton

the city’s name irks the natives
mayor podesto

weber
stockton
podesto

my mother had a child
that drowned before birth

when the rain does come
the ground has been too dry
to absorb the water

who can swim
when the tides
of the city
reach the tides
of the delta

will i sink
in this stockton
on the inland delta

which way
will the water
drag our bodies

why do we
ask questions

Tamer Mostafa is a Stockton, California native whose writing has been influenced by many, but directly affected by the teachings of Joshua McKinney, Alan Williamson, and Joe Wenderoth. He has published over 30 literary works in various journals and magazines such as Confrontation, The Rag, Poets Espresso Review, Stone Highway Review, and Phantom Kangaroo

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Douglas Campbell - Two Poems

June 1, 2015, 9:08 am

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Dark Walking

Before dawn, when Orion
and a slivered moon dominate,
when maples are barely articulated
against a leafless sky
and the air is quiet,
when few eyes travel this road
the stars ride high
and towhees are not astir
beneath the laurel hedges,
the small winding stream
weeps among rocks and roots
collecting whatever has fallen,
taking whatever is not tied down
or bound up.

Chasing after Anorexia

Dematerializing is what saints do.
Each holy person, if the Medieval
sculptors are correct, seeks after
spiritual anorexia, a reaching out
towards physical non
Saints are persons who are able to
tend, as far as it is humanly possible,
towards emptying themselves
of self so that they may be filled
with the pure nothingness of the
spirit. Unlike Descartes, they believe
that to not be is to be fulfilled,
and that thinking, at least as seen
through a philosophical lens, puts
too much emphasis on the individual
self and ignores too much the

Douglas Campbell is a retired professor of art at George Fox University where he taught painting, printmaking, drawing and art history courses. His poetry and artworks have been published in a number of periodicals.

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Neil Ellman - Three Poems

June 3, 2015, 7:30 am

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The Man Who Flew into His Own Picture

(Ilya Kabakov, room installation)

The man who flew into his own picture

became anything but himself

or the thing he most wanted to be

with the face he most wanted to have

he became an eagle with serrated wings

as broad as his ambition

and just as bleak

a carpenter ant, a mite,

a spider crawling across the moon

as if it had a destination or a home

and then a serpent

with a flaring tongue

in words not even he could understand—

and then was turned to shattered glass

with every shard another face

and none of them his own

or the one he wanted most.

Portrait of the Equilibrist

(Paul Klee, painting)

He who walks the braided rope

between the this and that

of yesterdays stretched

from here and now

to the when and if

of tomorrow without a net

juggles his days

(three, four, five at a time

as he crosses the breach below

one careful step, then another

with a sureness of foot

that bridges the ends of his time

the equilibrist knows the width

of his life in millimeters, years

and frays of hope

and the measureless depth

beneath his feet.

The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown

to a Pair of Lovers

(Joan Miró, painting)

That the albatross knows the unknown

the way it senses in the blindness of a night

Its path along migration’s way

Is the miracle that guides its flight

that it reveals in dips and arcs

its skim above confounding waves

first lost behind a swell

then seen for an instant against the sky

Is the secret it concedes

to lovers lost themselves

wondering how the beautiful dark bird

with outstretched wings

can come and go so easily

between reality and belief

and know so much of undiscovered seas

Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has published more than 1,100 poems in print and online journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net.

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Autumn Meier - One Poem

June 12, 2015, 7:30 am

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Lava

I tried to capture you the other day—
To put your love into words, to
Describe the fire coursing through
Your veins. Of course you’re fire;
Lovely things are rarely anything but.

Yet the bonfires are too tame, fireworks
Too explosive, the fireplace too
Homely and the firecracker too loud.

Then I thought of magma, of that scorching
Potential residing just below the earth’s
Surface, pulsating with the heat of a
Thousand suns, and I knew it was you,
To most.

To me?
You’re lava.

You’re the heat seeping from long-hardened
Scars. You’re the fire licking up dry and
Crumbling wood. You’re the intense force
Moving mountain rock and sea. You’re the
Private display only I can witness.

You’re more than potential to me:
You’re the ever-felt eruption.

Autumn Meier is a graduate student of Southwestern University in Waxahachie, Texas. she currently resides in Illinois, where she is preparing to leave for Kiev, Ukraineto implement a writing program.

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Craig Shay - One Poem

June 22, 2015, 8:42 am

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Ghost Face

He sings beside the ticket-window
hallucinations of flappers
walking and talking
through the linoleum hallways of his mind.

He sees the souls
of the passersby
through the television static,
a chaotic flashing of cowboy westerns.

Psychosis spills from his jowls
of that toothless mouth.

Words dancing freely off his yellow tongue,
ravaged by termites and years of doctors druggy drool.

Travelers walk past him
floating on silver electric escalators
to the helicopters, to their sleep chambers
and rain soaked metallic eyes.

Quiet specters pass
boasting, unaware
that he’s been living alone
in his checkerboards universe−
contemplating the riddles of their evil glances.

He picks up their crumbs and morsels,
delivering bread and wine
to the pothole where he keeps
the key to his concrete fingerprint.

Craig Shay's an English teacher. His poetry blog is available at www.craigshay.wordpress.com

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