Issue #32
Don Brandis
The Tell of Orpheus
On ashen sand a mile down in the Black Sea
where no light reaches rest the bones
of a small lost 9th century ship
resting as it fell making its seabed drawing sheets
of time and sand around itself in an imagined sleep
its sinking once a traumatic memory
her decks now only ax and adz memory
unshaken by the random churn of age-defying sea
our Orpheus gaze finds it Euridice asleep
her breathtaking supple flesh-and-bone
in ruffled bedding wrapped, not winding sheets
a constant traveller on an outbound ship
beyond grief’s horizon, an untimely ship
untouched by the lurid wash of cause and memory
she sails, though her outward weathered canvas sheets
are long since torn away by an angry sea
to ever-finer scraps invisible among this-time’s bones
she lies indifferent in a foreign life disguised as sleep
so Orpheus’ singing sight recounts as troubled sleep
he’s never out of, leaden as this sunken ship
he will not see as naked bones
so sharp are freeze-frame images of memory
mistaken for the other face of time and sea
she wears without anticipation among these sheets
movingly unmoved by the testimony of sheets;
time’s other face is not that well-known unknown sleep
a sly oblivion of wordless death at sea
but an unmarked under-plane offered always as a single ship
a fabled beauty mistaken for his memory
of her radiant flesh smiling, ‘lovely in her bones’
our gaze knowing itself as telling bones
tossed to answer what was said in sheets
between them, time and other-time, while memory
serves only the first, the other seems asleep
as if a journey were just its ship
as if waves make seas
she is our gaze; her bones rest in our sea
we send these sheets as lure for wayward ships
not memory but singing sight decides who wakes, who sleeps
Don Brandis is a retired healthcare worker living a bit north of Seattle. He has been published in Clementine Unbound, The Hamilton Stone Review, Poetry Quarterly, Leaping Clear (pending), and The Bone Parade.
Jordan Potter
Barely Alive
as she was,
I drove past my grandmother’s
mobile home a thousand times.
Not once stopping.
I could see it from the street,
umber as a rotten tooth,
as I passed. The porch light.
The rose bushes. Some one
took care of them. I didn’t.
Her old Mazda, now Zoe’s,
under that arabesque pillared
awning. With the two sheds.
It would’ve been so easy.
A small chat. That’s all
she wanted. Just to see me.
How busy I must have been
over and over again.
Jordan Potter is a writer and actor from Huntington Beach. He operates the poetry film studio, Blank Verse Films, with his partner, Mike Gioia.
Ellen Chia
Immortal Soldier Off-duty
Molded clay steeped
In craftsmen’ blood –
A minute fraction of
An afterlife ambition
Encased in glass.
Life-size Qin’s foot soldier
And alongside a warring horse;
Their vacuous gazes penetrating
Through glass,
Past my unanswered questions
And towards eternity, 2240 years
And counting.
Ellen lives in Thailand and whilst pondering over the wonders and workings of her tiny universe finds herself succumb time after time to the act of poetry making. Her works have been published in The Ekphrastic Review, NatureWriting, The Honest Ulsterman, Zingara Poetry Review, Poetry Hall and The Tiger Moth Review.
Abigail George
Fertile daughters of Eve young and old swooning though mountains fall
I am Pompeii. There is a map in my hands. I
unearth ancient scrolls. Better the devil you
know. I am an all-woman. I am an all-man. I
am an alien species and mariner. I am a fisher-
woman. Watch how I spear the whale, eat shark
flesh, console the turtle doves at Christmas. I
take the pills and slowly but surely its poison
transforms me into the capacity to live vicariously
through Freud. The nerve damage is there but
there is nothing I can do about it. Like the worker
bee. Like the sea. I just want to be alone. I just
want to complete the task in front of me, ahead
of me. I want to focus all my attention and energy
on it. Leave me be. I need to concentrate. I need
my health. I cry out. No one answers. There’s no
reply. My cry is ignored by the universe. My cry
is not important to anyone else. My matter is crucified
by the silence. I came from particles, broken images.
My sister came from Prague. The lonely man and
the angry woman is my father and mother. One I love
more than the other. I am the spotted fox, the ghost
in this situation. This equation spells out drama, a
bad falling out, but my father has charisma on his
side. My mother has her wilful beauty while I have
flux on my side. So, we danced to the edge of the
world. My sister wants to teach English in Prague.
That is where she is going for an eternity. She does
not come from broken images. She comes from rituals
and purification, meditation and intention.
And so we move, we play these roles, in the dark.
A time of abundance is coming. You’re the next
Elijah, Elisha, Jeremiah. You’re the next Lumumba,
Soyinka, Achebe, Adichie. It doesn’t matter if you
have your heart set on being a man or woman. I can
feel this in my blood. My veins sing your praises.
I worship you. Your river mouth. Your tangled
tongue. Your music is awe-inspiring. Your ship-wrecked
hair swims in my hands. Its texture is perfect. The
world breaks and I’m there. You tremble and I’m there
greeting you with the signs of love songs and angels.
Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Abigail George’s was raised in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, educated there, in Swaziland, and Johannesburg. She briefly studied film and television production in Johannesburg. She is a South African, a blogger, feminist, full-time poet, short story writer, essayist, novelist and diarist. She lives in and is inspired by the people of the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
Mark Parsons
Interior
The noise of poker and debris
louder than the traffic
going past the median ditch,
the convict’s day
begins.
A flat styrofoam cup
whispers hoarsely along the nail.
The nail scrapes
a v-notch
cut in the rim a five gallon bucket.
The cup falls. Ball bearings slide home with dry clicks
from tip to the handle and back.
An aluminum can
pierced
sounds like a woman when pierced
in love.
The martial strains of withdrawal likewise reflect
the heart of a woman
in loss,
for want of the imprisoned man.
Mark Parsons received his MFA from the University of Arizona. His poems have been published in Antigonish Review (No. 192, Winter 2018), Cafe Review, Former People, Cobalt Review, subTerrain (no. 68), Wisconsin Review (vol 48, no. 1, Winter 2015), and elsewhere. He lives in Tokyo.
Sandy Deutscher
Parade
|
Flying Geese and Broken Dishes and Pinwheel quilts snap in the sunshine as we carry them like flags We scour crowds for children We kick soccer balls, bounce basketballs, ride unicycles, Dogs, adopted from rescue shelters, trot after a refrigerated float Silver seniors dressed in spangled shorts and glittery T-shirts, square dance to hip-hop Plumbers and electricians strut with |
Sandy Deutscher Green writes from her home in Virginia USA, where her work has appeared Bitter Oleander (2008, Vol.14 #2), Northern Virginia Review, Existere, and Qwerty, as well as in her chapbook, Pacing the Moon (Flutter Press, 2009). BatCat Press published her limited-edition chapbook, Lot for Sale. No Pigs, in June 2019.
John Sweet
the middle distance
in this age if wonder i am
considering the drowning man’s smile
says it’s okay to be afraid
but he isn’t
says the desert within is the one
that can never be conquered
spend your entire life crawling
towards mirages
think about your father’s
suicide or maybe not
the idea of death is a
double-edged sword with no handle,
but you still have to grab it
he says
you still have to scream with no
expectations of mercy
make a whole lot of useless noise
just to prove
you’re worth remembering
John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in the continuous search for an unattainable and constantly evolving absolute truth. His latest poetry collections include HEATHEN TONGUE (2018 Kendra Steiner Editions) and A FLAG ON FIRE IS A SONG OF HOPE (2019 Scars Publications).