Issue #37
Pamílèrín Jacob
Lockdown Nocturne II
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself…
-Carol Ann Duffy, Prayer.
It is the sparrows who offer first
their gratitude to the air, bells of mindfulness
clanging in their throats. Soon, a butterfly
joins in, contributes its quiet hymn.
All day, I have been memorising
the latest death figures around the world,
gobbling the news with my cereal
struggling to write final poems…
But the sparrows stitch the air
with their sacred shrill, & O the banana
trees listen to my rants, extend their shredded
arms at me as though to tame
the wilderness in my voice, compost
my fear into forgiveness. I want to dance
off the loneliness perched on the fringes
of my soul, & these coffin-shaped clouds
have them woven into tulips.
Pamílèrín Jacob is a Nigerian poet whose poems have appeared in Barren Magazine, Elsieisy, Poetry Potion, IceFloe Press & elsewhere. He was the second runner-up for Sevhage Poetry Prize 2019. Author of the chapbook Gospels of Depression; reach him on Twitter @pamilerinjacob.
Pete Mladinic
Blind Man Diving at Balmorhea
The sky above him bright,
fifteen feet from the board
the water fresh and cold,
his body his to do and not do,
guided by his brother’s arm
to the base of the stairs,
near at hand his sister-in-law,
his blind wife, and in their shadows
that form one shadow we applaud.
He rises to the chilly surface
in late afternoon when others
are coming home from work
and down the road apiece
flies circle rotting fish heads
on a lake bank, near a cluster
of dilapidated trailers, one
with a sign that says How Do.
Spring seems like summer.
We left the lake for this pool
cold and deep, bathers,
picnic tables in shade, boards
high and low, the blind man
guided by his younger brother.
He climbs, then makes the board
spring, sees by the weight
of his presence how it will be.
Then, legs slightly bent, he dives
a split second skyward, down
in darkness, his blind world
bright as the sunlit spring-fed pool.
The top of his head appears.
Fish dart underwater.
Pete Mladinic has published three books of poetry: Lost in Lea, Dressed for Winter, and Falling Awake in Lovington. His poems have appeared recently in Academy of the Heart and Mind, The Mark, Adelaide, and Metafore. He lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.
Rochelle Jewel Shapiro
I WASN’T THERE
The night a tomcat grabbed a small she-cat by the nape, dragged
her, yowling, under a parked red Rambler. I fell to my knees
on the sidewalk, saw him mount her, all the while holding her
with his teeth as she scrabbled the asphalt, desperate to free herself.
Shoo, shoo, I shouted, trying to swipe at him.
A man crouched next to me and had a look.
That’s just the way men do it, he said. Get up for God’s sake.
I wasn’t there when Zack, captain of the football team, raped
that middle school girl. I can’t remember
her name, but I see her overturned bowl of yellow hair,
snub nose, agate eyes, and her body, short, columnar,
like a farmgirl. She had no father anyone knew of.
Her mother, a nurse, worked double shifts, leaving her alone
the night Zack knocked, and swooped in,
beating his body against hers like Zeus as a giant swan.
Her mother might have beaten her
for letting him in and how could her mother take time off
to go to court and what if she had with Zack’s father
being a lawyer and all? It was 1960,
we didn’t know what to say to her.
We tried not to look at her, thinking this
was the least hurtful thing we could do,
but when we happened to glance at her,
she darted away like a shoo-ed cat.
I heard Zack is a retired surgeon now,
married to his fourth and youngest wife,
each woman shucked like an ear of corn.
Rochelle Jewel Shapiro’s novel, Miriam the Medium (Simon & Schuster, 2004), was nominated for the Harold U. Ribelow Award. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in many literary magazines such as Frontier Poetry, Midway Journal, Typishly, and Crack the Spine. She currently teaches writing at UCLA Extension.
George Cassidy Payne
Why
the universe
is so cold and silent and empty, yet arrives,
each morning on my door like a bag of flowers.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram, Ampersand Literary Review, Angles, and 3:16 Journal.
Carla McGill
Papa’s Toolshed
U-shaped, strip lights on both sides
Cans of nails, bolts, spit can,
an ivory pistol I uncovered
in the metal box, padlock open
Papa there near the back
where barrels hide whiskey bottles
beneath rolled-up tarps
he smears sweat
onto his brown bandana
his overalls
always sharp-seamed
from Granny’s iron
A box of cookie fortunes
beneath claw hammers
Tomorrow will bring your best hope
Your best days are ahead of you
Try to find the good in people
and your reward will be great
Granny meanwhile sweeping up
broken saucers from the morning troubles
While she cries and prays
He whistles, opens the snuff can,
starts up his drill
Carla McGill’s work has been published in Shark Reef, The Atlanta Review, Cloudbank, Paragon Journal, The Hungry Chimera, Bryant Literary Review, The Alembic, and others. Her story, “Thirteen Memories,” received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s MAR/APR 2016 Very Short Fiction Contest.
Patrice Boyer Claeys
Still Life
School is out. I couldn’t be more
scared of
the strange openness.
Nothing to do but scuff down
the lonely street,
stare out of windows
for what isn’t there.
Yet somewhere
a new sign appears:
Stay Safe.
We wait. We see
closed doors.
In the year of no work
it doesn’t feel good to know
I don’t do well untethered.
Something awful’s coming, isn’t it?
Cento Sources: Gottfried Benn, Benjamin Garcia, Daniel Barnum, Francesca Bell, Debra Nystrom, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Koch, Liz Beasley, Carl Rakosi, Luther Hughes, John Gould Fletcher, Charles Malam, Matthew Nienow, Danez Smith, Margaret Hasse, Dean Young
May Day and Whatever Follows
The squirrels don’t know what to make of it—
the Morse code of desire
unleashed furies.
Of the nest: scrappy twigs, string
bones, feather beak—
a bird who’d sing himself into an angel.
I’m not a bird, but I’m inhabited by a spirit
so lit with life,
and I’m glad
at this moment
the sun hangs high
in the architecture of happiness.
Please let me keep this.
Cento Sources: Sandy Longhorn, Bob Lucky, bell hooks, Nancy Van Winckel, Jesse Millner, Mark Doty, Chase Twichell, LaVerne Brown, Michael Dickman, Lee Upton, Xiaoly Li, Karen Holman, Ross John Farrar
Patrice Boyer Claeys is the author of The Machinery of Grace (2020) and Lovely Daughter of the Shattering (2019). Her work appears in Zone 3, Glassworks Magazine, Literary Mama, Inflectionist Review, and Aeolian Harp Anthology 5. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. www.patriceboyerclaeys.com.
Carson Pytell
Playing
Filling the terrarium with sand and stone,
a ring of water, some grass,
and amassing the insects to populate it.
Then, only then, the peace of play,
of peering in from above,
observing their small actions,
shining the lamp on them,
eventually committing cronyism
with the best behaved
and pummeling with perdition the ants;
plenty and pestilent.
Kids do the damndest things, then,
naturally as they came, and with pause,
pull the plug on them.
Carson Pytell is a poet from Albany, NY. His work has appeared widely online and in print in such publications as Vita Brevis Press, Blue Moon Lit & Art Review, and Gideon Poetry Review, among many others. His debut collection, First-Year (Alien Buddha Press, 2020) is available on Amazon, and his first chapbook, Trail (Guerrilla Genesis Press, 2020) is forthcoming.
Colin Lubner
I Shout From Atop This Bridge So That Later I Might Tell That I Have Shouted From Atop This
Bridge
I
am
at war
not only
with myself,
but also the less-
than gentle rise
of this bridge.
I am biking.
It is night.
Below
me
a
canal’s
black mass.
The air thick
with water and salt.
The ocean distant, implied.
No stars. These things
should be enough.
They regard
me and
only
me.
No need
to mention Montaigne.
Nothing
to
report
here. Okay.
Tranquility and
fame cannot coexist.
Okay. This bridge might
bear the weight of your donated
thought. Okay. Think of me as one
smart and sensitive and capable-even-of-
comedy cookie. Okay. Think of me as okay.
No stars. The air thick and black. Why
must I report these things. Okay.
The other side an asymmetry,
the air fresh
and my
eyes
wet. I
care not
for how much
I care for how much
others care for me.
I care. May I
forget me.
May you
forget
me.
Colin Lubner writes (in English) and teaches (math) in southern New Jersey. His work has either appeared or will appear, temporally speaking. Recent pieces can be found through his Twitter: @no1canimagine0. He is keeping on keeping on.
Mary McCormack
September
The moon, bright
as a swan’s wing.
Your hands, thawing
on my back.
The lake, full
of ripples.
And your lips,
warm against my own.
Mary McCormack‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Storm Cellar, Gingerbread House, Pegasus (2015), and After the Pause, among others. If you’d like to read more of her poetry, check out her book Away From Shore.
Narmadhaa Sivaraja
Because one haiku can’t say it all
It’s just hormonal,
as a woman of that age—
of weather, they say.
Be alert; not alarmed.
Drunk, high, hungover,
awakes, sweltering and swollen,
sky on new year’s day.
Be alert; not alarmed.
Scorched in his homeland
an indigenous Aussie,
our koala bear.
Be alert; not alarmed.
We awake to smoke,
and retire amidst the smoke—
we’re the lucky ones.
Be alert; not alarmed.
Today on the news:
a geography lesson;
towns burning near you.
Be alert; not alarmed.
Our only bequest,
to the next generation:
P M 2 point 5.
Be alert; not alarmed.
Mounting bushfire deaths;
nature’s hazard reduction;
weeding human pests.
Be alert; not alarmed.
We burn, choke, suffer;
see climate change in action,
at world’s inaction.
Be alert,
But also alarmed.
* During the bushfire season of 2019-2020 in Australia, the chiefs of the state and national fire services repeatedly advised the public to “Be alert; not alarmed.” You could hear it at least five times in the news every day.
Published in Pure Haiku, Elephants Never, and From the Ashes—a poetry anthology by Animal Heart Press—Narmadhaa enjoys writing travel haiku, poetry, and fiction at The Chaos Within.
Colin Dodds
Jupiter Optimus Maximus
Raindrops jump
through windows
like locusts
Lighting leavens water
Wind lashes
the monument
Thunder
disorganizes my pulse
Colin Dodds is a writer with several acclaimed books to his name, including Ms. Never and Spokes of an Uneven Wheel. He also writes and directs films. He lives in New York City, with his wife and daughter. See more of his work at thecolindodds.com.
Laurie Reiche
ME, THE “OTHER WOMAN”
|
is no one really, I can’t be seen, my fingers are clandestine, I am thin cellophane in the crotch of a pair of scissors that effortlessly slide, cutting my heart smoothly in two. I am secluded in the ether, floating alone through the atmosphere, love’s underling. My needs are always secondary, the warmth of amor momentary. Yes, I am a ghost both there and not there. Call me lacuna, gap, invisible space, call me love’s hobo, drifter, homeless, unnameable gift to the married man who might even love me. Me, the other woman, half human, expendable and cherished; half human, pure joy. I can’t be a bitch, can’t complain like the wife can because the other woman isn’t necessary, is pure pleasure which is always capricious, a small addendum in all our lives. When I wake alone my lover is asleep in another woman’s bed, his wife’s, in a homey-home not mine, his. When I wake, dreaming doesn’t end but just goes on and on, for there is no one to touch my hands, my back, my shoulders, my arms. Am I real? Do I feel? Should we feel sorry for the other woman who wants what isn’t hers? Quiet criminal, thief? She’ll get what she deserves. |
Fisherman
You went fishing.
I was deep underwater swimming,
saw something dangling.
Didn’t know it wasn’t
a banquet, didn’t know
I’d open wide for crumbs.
I would have swallowed anything
to be back in the beginning, to be
young. The hook through the roof
of the mouth was not so painful
as the ax in the heart. Or even
decapitation. I hung in the air
off your pole slowly spinning,
imagining I was becoming
a human being. I could have been anyone,
as long as you let me love you.
Love was in my gut, valuable.
You had to cut it out and I let you.
For both of us a dream come true.
Laurie Reich is a writer, photographer, painter, and creative writing facilitator, she lives part time in London, where she concentrates on photographing the city, particularly Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury. She is the author of The Dance of the Carbon-Atom (Mellen Poetry Press, 1996) and has won first place in several contests.
Dante Novario
The Princess of the Peas
She’s robbing grocery stores again
Armed with Green Giant cans of snap
Peas field peas sugar please
Do what she says, her hands are stained
Green and she hasn’t slept in weeks
She bleeds her royal blood into mud
Hides in the forest from passing princes
Always wary they will trap her tiny body
On their tower of mattresses, seduce
Her with promises of a good night’s sleep
She prays for peas, for suffering
That can be forked and eaten. Burns down
Another sleep outlet, unstuffs every feather pillow
In the kingdom, stays awake all night
Uncomfortable; growing bruises
That do not get adored by the masses
Her little empire, filled with aluminum cuts
And blankets of stitched labeling, thousands of green
Subjects who are individually chosen to be buried
Within her dirt bed every night
To keep the filth of dreams away, to not
Make her vulnerable with rest
She feels every worm and root squirm
Underneath her tired body, she never blinks,
Sharpens cans into knives, plans tomorrow’s hunt,
Believes wholeheartedly
In the power of small things
Dante Novario currently lives in Louisville, KY where he studied writing at Bellarmine University and works as a behavior technician with special needs individuals. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Firewords Quarterly, Ghost City Review, Rogue Agent Journal, Dream Pop Journal, and The Ariel Magazine.
Emma Alexandrov
Another Utopic Delusion
The night I know you’ll never leave
this poisoned place I come to get you.
I drive through darkness like a wall miles thick.
Bugs’ bodies slam the windshield in green and yellow spots,
gossamer shreds flattened in the wind.
I could be anywhere or nowhere at all.
I find you in your bed face down
in stillness, your face the placid mirror
of the prize of silence in your mind.
Your golden hair is parted
like a curtain half-open on the stage, motionless.
A rarity: you, free from attention to spectacle,
free from lines that you must cross or refuse to cross,
for once un-ogled by fools insistent
on reducing your every act in naming it.
I take you out of bed. You don’t wake up.
I leave the door open when I carry you from the room.
The wide, white eyes of the streetlights stare
as I take you to the car. It’s cold.
Through the fog of our breath
I buckle the seatbelt around you.
The night that encircles us is slithering closed.
We can’t stay. But I am no stranger to departure.
As so many times before, a room in my heart become this place,
your place, cramped warmth, big leaves behind the windows,
lacquered hallways. I drive us away,
drive us to nowhere but far away,
to no place at all. The night writhes around us
like the gullet of a snake.
I want only for you to wake up
to the sun made whole again.
Let us find ourselves in a place for walking kind and widely,
the kind of place where nothing’s named and nothing is recorded
because everything lasts forever and nothing can be lost.
Emma Alexandrov is keeping herself from thinking too much about mortality by reading and writing poems as well as trying to figure out how to make computers think. She’s currently rooted in Atlanta, GA, Portland, OR, and Poughkeepsie, NY.
Ankh Spice
Wellington airport is built on reclaimed land
We rode horses here
Her words pace quietly, landing crescents
in the spaces between jet-engines. Our own feet touch
down the beach with no sound. Sand enough left
for four soft shoes, chasing the crisping of hooves
across once-were-dunes. She walks with her eyes closed
fragile lids shutters for seven decades gone, runway
all run away, simpled to daisy-trails
before this island waxed international, and the southerly
is bitter, flinging kerosene. Still, one of us breathes
sun-dusted crabgrass and sweet manure.
I drive her back in silence, willing
her lungs buoyant-full of that child summer, for her sleep
tonight, and oh please for a few more years yet.
At dark, I return. Sit watching
the black race of the bay, the reflections
of tail-lights. How they prance
over the water.
Ankh Spice is a sea-obsessed, queer-identified poet from Aotearoa. His work has been widely published internationally, in print and online, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You’ll find him and a lot of sea photography on Twitter @SeaGoatScreams or on Facebook @AnkhSpiceSeaGoatScreamsPoetry.
Julianna May
Almost
we lay
a clear v
between our bodies
our shoulders the sharp point
Almost floats
She massages at the roots
in my lungs
invigorated by the rum
waterfall
Almost swims
undressed
knocks at my heart
beats the door
but gets no answer
not even an eye
in the peephole
how quickly She is broken
as backs straighten
hands lift
shoes are tied.
Julianna May is a poet based in Northeastern Pennsylvania, a graduate of Wilkes University’s M.A. in Creative Writing (’20), and a high school English teacher. Find her on twitter: @JuliannaMay1216
donnarkevic
About X’s
Many worry
about the African revolution
(a black man in a car.)
You know what happens
when fire flashes through.
We all pray to God.
The man with a rope
around his neck,
(with an officer’s knee
on his neck,)
he prays to the same God.
The black man can’t hide
his skin. They say
be nonviolent (nonsense)
while you swing
(while you lay on your belly.)
Beat me
and charge me with assault.
Better to learn the language
of violence. Lord, (I can’t breathe!)
they know
what they are doing.
Mine eyes see
the men about to assassinate me.
(They gone kill me!)
Salam aleikum.
While I become a white
ghost, (the autopsy reveals homicide.)
three colored women scrub
my blood off the stage. (Mama!)
donnarkevic: Buckhannon, WV. MFA National University. Recent work is forthcoming in The Centifictionist, Blue Collar Review, and Ancient Paths. A Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. Poetry Chapbooks include Laundry (2005, Main Street Rag), Admissions (2013, FutureCycle Press), and Many Sparrows (2018, The Poetry Box).