Issue #70
Christopher Clauss
Sitting in Sympathies
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Hours after sunset you will find him sitting in darkened rooms with face aglow in screenlight typing out the last of the day’s memories compressing them into shorthand metaphor, that probably no one will read |
The muse claims its tenuous hold, the time and sympathies that never saw sights like this reverse the flow of their tears all for the chance to finish a poem before going to sleep |
Velocity of the Schoolyard
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The Fibonacci sequence tells me to run away, but instead I do everything – to distance myself It doesn’t make a difference Every weather map has their own hurricane – spiraling toward my coastline – ravaging every rosebud and seed-heavy sunflower and closed up pinecone – each of which swirls itself into a ratio like there is no other way to do it Symplectic geometry predicts an infinite cylinder in this velocity and in that location of a simple pendulum Euclidean predictability as a child on a swing set calling out in the thrill of the moment hoping for an underdog |
The cynical side of recess duty – this is when I attempt to watch from the middle of the chaos as you might expect Child screaming at the scene on the jungle gym – why must you torment – so unkind to each other – reducing a smile to a downturned face – a quivering eyelid – a thrown insult – stinging in the moment and they count one to one to two to three to five anything they can do to keep from tantrum – there’s something about both self-soothing and mathematics that seems like some magic of the schoolyard – only until it isn’t – when the bullying child feels the swing – a kick aimed between the legs doubling over in pain – the victim-turned-aggressor-turned-fugitive – doing nothing at the time but now hurdling the playground fence and sprinting – something that feels to him like justice – savoring this temporary moment of revenge |
Christopher Clauss (he/him) is an introvert, Ravenclaw, father, poet, photographer, and middle school science teacher in rural New Hampshire. His mother believes his poetry is “just wonderful.” Both of his daughters declare that he is the “best daddy they have,” and his pre-teen science students rave that he is “Fine, I guess. Whatever.”
Jan Cronos
Oscines
Passeri of the perching birds
a lark of lavender-
how colorless the latin name
for this avian of arias.
She trills dejectedly confined
within an oil portrait
of impressionist design.
The song- Bird’s blues,
Now is the Time,
matches her muted tremolo.
Her plaintive beak is poised
to peck the gesso polished frame.
The duchess, the study’s cynosure,
posed unaware her feathered pet
was subject to eternal imprisonment.
Flattened behind a pane of glass
she sings, her pain is manifest,
her sweet warble a crow’s
raucous lament.
Author writes in NYC under the pen name Jan Cronos.
Andrew C. Kidd
Rowing
We locked eyes, bloodshot.
Masked by air flow, his gaze reflected
tears against the inside black
of a widening pupil.
A small glint caught me like a rowlock
as if nestled on a gunwale winking.
I watched him row on calm seas,
to float away in a moonlit stream.
He was bound for the horizon line
where colours bleed to bend time.
Bent double, he was tired,
oaring his way through open waters.
His name was softly called
in the caress and cushion of gentle waves.
He stopped to listen in silent acknowledgement
but turned away and kept on rowing.
Andrew C. Kidd has had poetry and flash fiction published in Elsewhere: A Journal of Place, Friday Flash Fiction, Journal of the American Medical Association, Green Ink Poetry, bluepepper, Ffraid and Soor Ploom Press.
Susanna Kittredge
Ekphrastic Slideshow in a Heat Wave
after a series of images by various artists
It’s so hot out, your head and torso dissolve
as your arms lift your shirt above your shoulders.
The sidewalk catches the tough sun like radiant sandstone.
Your three friends, the catalogue models, have moved to Paris,
losing their faith and their heads but keeping their cool,
their Kools, their plants, and their rotary telephones.
The connection is terrible. Their words disintegrate into a soup
of component parts. All the a’s gravitate toward each other;
the b’s form an arch; the c’s float along in a straight, shimmering line.
And behind you, more words pile on top of themselves
and become illegible. What exactly are you trying to express,
with all the revolutionary fervor of a Communist sunrise?
You try to go to them while they sleep and get caught
in a dreamcatcher (a simple one without feathers; the friend
with the plants made it herself). From over her bed you can see
a smear of garden through the translucent curtains. Soon
you’ll be covered in grass stains, shaking words out of your pages
like seeds to repair the patchy turf.
Your eyes succumb to the light—St. Lucy with her head
stuck in a lantern. When you pray to her, a thistle
grows out of your esophagus. You press it
in your prayer book with French psalms that swim
unevenly across the pages because it’s still hot
and humid and the wor(l)d is still melting.
Other poems by Susanna Kittredge have appeared in journals including Barrow Street (Winter 2017-2018), The Columbia Review (Spring 2016) and Salamander (Summer 2011) and anthologies including Bay Poetics (Faux Press, 2006). Her first full-length collection, The Future Has A Reputation, was published by CW Books in 2020. By day, she is a middle school special education teacher.
John Tustin
SLEEPAWAY CAMP, 1965
I was a lean, green, not-quite Marine
at Camp Lejeune in the summer of 1965.
A New York City boy being made a man in the South.
This is where we were being taught to be men but also less than men –
extensions of a great killing machine called the U.S. Marine Corps.
We were made to do everything in time –
ninety seconds to shit, two minutes to shower,
two minutes to shave.
Not one second more.
I’d daydream about dropping a deuce.
Eventually the call for chow would make us salivate –
Pavlov’s Platoon.
After lights out we were made to lie at attention in our beds
and recite The Lord’s Prayer aloud.
There were sand fleas everywhere
and they would get under your skin and start biting.
I was in the top bunk reciting The Lord’s Prayer
when a sand flea decided to dig into my face.
The moment I raised my hand to swat it
I felt an iron hand grip my wrist in the total darkness,
flinging me from the top bunk to the floor.
“GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON WHY YOU SHOULD MOVE DURING MY LORD’S
PRAYER!”
the Sergeant shouted.
“Sir, I was crossing myself, sir!” immediately came out of my mouth.
Satisfied with that, the Sergeant lifted me to my feet
with that same single iron hand.
The Sergeant’s primary job was to scoop out anything in our souls
that would prevent us from unflinchingly doing what we were told,
replacing our fear of death with a fear of wrath.
There was no god but the U.S. Marine Corps
and our every movement and deed was in service to it.
The rest of my time there I didn’t think as much about where I was going
or what could happen to me there
as I did about what would happen if the Sergeant was insane enough
to go to my personnel file
and find out I wasn’t Catholic.
I finally stopped thinking about that when I got to San Diego –
then I started thinking about Viet Nam again.
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection is forthcoming from Cajun Mutt Press. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
Ken Poyner
Profit Driven
First driver driving his clown herd to the fairgrounds gets the circus contract. It is not about talent or showmanship, but time. Once that first herd is clocked-in, word passes to the other herds and they peel away, heading for small fairs, clown-o-gram enterprises, even party rentals. Smart herders sometimes forego the main prize, drive their clowns directly to the smaller markets, ensuring a lesser, but substantial, payout — getting ahead of those who go for, but miss, the largest prize. Spotters have been sent to watch for herds that suddenly leave the main clown trail. Every opportunity has become contested.
After years of impersonating a Systems Engineer, Ken has retired to watch his wife break world raw powerlifting records. Ken’s four current poetry and four short fiction collections are available from multiple bookselling web sites.
Eric Pinder
Flowers Playing Catch with Bees
A wildflower woos
the next nearest blossom
by throwing a bee.
Petals clasp, anthers bobble
but with practice, perfect aim
delivers a catch. Spectators laze
on picnic blankets, their sandwich slices glued
by all the sweet exercise
on display.
Up the bee rises, caked
in concupiscence and the powdered promise
of a future year
of bouquets.
Eric Pinder is the author of If All the Animals Came Inside, Counting Dinos, Cat in the Clouds, and other books about wilderness, wildlife, and weather. He teaches at a small college in the woods of New Hampshire, a few miles down the road less traveled.
Jeff Volmer
Oceanic Preyer
Still wanders on the sea—
violet gorging light below
memories burned in eclipsed eyes,
orbiting spheres of silverfish.
Beaked tuna,
unicornic marlin,
spectral blue
bolts rise in silent
violence with iridescent
purple thunder while above,
salty birds pinwheel in the glisk.
Jeff’s work has been published in Broken Plate, Cider Press Review, Louisiana Literature, and Voices de la Luna. He graduated with a degree in English and creative writing from Middlebury College. Jeff lives with his wife, three kids, and dog and cat in New York’s Hudson Valley.
Shawna Ervin
“S”
S is for sin that sticks to the roof of your mouth like stale crackers, that clings to your back like August sweat. S is for stiff little-girl tights and long skirts on Sunday morning, for mother’s glare during silent prayer. S is for mom’s shiny red fingernails dug into girl’s forearm, a twist, crescents under girl’s sleeve, for the soft, golden bruise from last Sunday. S is for pastor’s fist shaking, a congregation that shudders with praise. S is for search your heart, only suffering will refine you, for salvation you seek but will not find.
Shawna Ervin has an MFA, is a poetry reader for Adroit Journal, and founding faculty of the Tupelo Press Teen Writing Center. Shawna is an alum of Bread Loaf and Tin House workshops. Recent publications include Bangalore Review, Cagibi, Rappahannock Review, The Maine Review, Sweet: A Literary Confection, and elsewhere.