Issue #69
Cecil Morris
after our daughter passes, we go camping
here, in the wilderness of trees and wind,
night comes, all black lightlessness,
god’s hands on our faces, everything gone
except the weight, the heat, the faintest smell,
the closeness of fear like a swaddling,
and noises unfamiliar magnified—
leaf rubbing leaf like the breathless
panting breaths of lovers or sheets
rubbing on skin, the crick and snaps
spaced out as if someone or something
approached in stealth on cat feet,
hesitant but relentless, a movement
of pauses, of long caesuras of silence,
of darkness deepened by strain,
until, gradually, we wake to little leaks
of light from between god’s fat fingers,
then, finally, our eyes adjusted to weak
light of dead stars among the tree
limbs in the panoply of fucking leaves
in their shush and shift in the watery
left-over light bounced from the lifeless
moon, the barest hope of sight, the hint
of day and warmth and faith, like a first
tiny spark in tinder that we breathe
to life, your face close to mine, intent
and praying she will catch, will hold, will stay,
the girl we created by ourselves will
burn again, her heartbeat a fierce fire
as it was before cancer closed around
her brain, closed her lost in wilderness,
and here, here, where we came for peace,
we remember her, remember the dark
how it closed on us, the hands of god closed
After 37 years of teaching high school English, Cecil Morris has turned his attention to writing what he taught others to read and (he hopes) enjoy. He has poems appearing in Cobalt Review, Ekphrastic Review, Evening Street Review, Hole in the Head Review, Midwest Quarterly, Poem, and Talking River Review.
Chris A. Smith
The Hawk
9 a.m. at the Linda Mar lot,
the air smelling of
salt and fried beans
from the Taco Bell up the beach.
There’s a fang of sun through the clouds,
And surfers bob like seals,
pointillist in the half-light,
the waves mixed-up, frothy—
in other words, bad.
I watch for a while, trying to conjure
myself into the water.
Bobby’s here, as usual,
chipped longboard hanging
from his tailgate,
watchcap slouched around his ears.
Wind’s already on it, huh
You shoulda been here an hour ago
Story of my life
I dig hands in pockets and
shift my feet,
thinking of work I haven’t done.
You paddling out?
Horns blare on Highway 1
and I lose Bobby’s reply,
but his frown says it all.
Just then, a hawk
bursts from a wind-bent cypress,
all smooth predator violence,
a spear of brown and white.
It snatches a mouse from the
scabby bushes by the bathrooms
and streaks off
into the steep, sere hills.
I turn back to my van
and reach for my wetsuit.
Maybe I’ll have a go
after all.
Chris A. Smith is a writer in San Francisco. Though trained as a journalist—he has reported on topics ranging from city politics to human rights to revolutionary movements—he also writes fiction and poetry. Find him at chrisasmith.net.
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
T is for Trickster
|
friend, I have woken— a katana presses on my ribs your ghosts sing— mauve-grey birches you cup the flames cool my residue— |
sleep paralyzed— its blade teasing blood seeping into my dreams dangle ageing arms torch my roof I will fuse with your flotsam |
No Man’s Land
eyes unstick—the morning’s torment
mouth—a sour millpond
margins stung with blisters
sunbeams set skin aflame the fury of fire ants
mapping the trail of yesterday’s trespasses
this formless terror: coming to in no man’s land
a graveyard of carafes and chiming glass
porcelain linen reeking of rust new wounds
the unclouded mind fights to remember to forget
a mocking mirror crunched with fractal webs
and trembling knuckles freckled with silver
raw from pummeling the reflection
of the wretch who stares back
putrid with shame
liquor-eyed
defeated
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian artist, poet, and improv pianist. She is the author of three micro-chapbooks published by Origami Poems Project. She lives and works in Sydney on the traditional lands of the Eora Nation.
Greg Jensen
SLEEP LESS
It wasn’t sleep
ticking down
like a slow drip
of morphine,
no detonation so deep
I couldn’t swim
from the fathomless blast.
But I was overcome
with what sleep asks
like a stranger in the night
whose face is scarred
and who keeps pressing
for a light.
It wasn’t sleep but it was
a fact I couldn’t shake off
in between lapses
less than sleep allows.
And I held on
to that piece of proof
until I was divided
against myself
accusing sleep of stealing
what my waking deserved.
It wasn’t sleep
but it was something
standing between me
and me
a middle I grew inside
to avoid
falling off.
BIRTH STORY
I haven’t come to terms
with my birth story.
I know so little about the body
that became the body
I gave to my lover,
the body I gave to my employer,
the body I gave to my mayor,
the body I gave to my alumni association,
the body I gave to my first
second mortgage.
For all I know
I was found
in a parked car
teething on a carton of cigarettes.
They rescued me
but left the smoke
in my eyes,
along with the emergency blanket
I was wrapped up in,
like a tin foil swan
made to carry home
leftover clam linguine.
My body was inside
another body someone
carried far into the night.
Two of us wandering
under a belly of stars
she couldn’t reach despite
the lovers in her path,
the soft fields where she laid
her body next to the warm earth
listening for the hum
deep down.
Greg Jensen has worked with unhoused adults living with mental illnesses and addiction problems for over 20 years. His work has appeared in ‘december,’ ‘Bluepepper,’ ‘Bodega,’ ‘Crab Creek Review,’ ‘Fugue,’ ‘Rabid Oak,’ and ‘Porridge Magazine.’ Greg holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University.
Terry Trowbridge
Two Acts
On an escarpment above a vineyard
an Italian painter watches his novice student
fail to paint the eyes of a martyr
and, with his own pedantic eyes,
he fails to think through the emotion
but instead, interrupts with a silent squelch
of colour in the charcoal pupils.
Stunned by the intrusion,
the novice fails to interpret the squashed tones.
Whatever was missing from his palette,
whatever reflection he failed to measure,
he asks himself if he does not deserve an explanation.
If not this moment then what was the point
of the journey that took him so far from home?
Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in The New Quarterly, Carousel, subTerrain, paperplates, The Dalhousie Review, untethered, Quail Bell, The Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Snakeskin Poetry, Literary Yard, M58, CV2, Brittle Star, Bombfire, American Mathematical Monthly, The Academy of Heart and Mind, Borderless, Literary Veganism, and more.
Nicolette Reim
The White Pigeon
The white pigeon
strolls city streets
walks awkwardly
one side to the other
absorbed by black puddles
in gutters.
At night
a moon in a nest
wedged under a bridge,
shimmers the river.
Nicolette Reim is published in Maudlin House, Underwood Press, and
The Art Section. Recent anthologies include Border Lines: Poems of Migration and Rumors Secrets & Lies: Poems About Pregnancy, Abortion & Choice. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry, Drew University, and lives/works in NYC and Atlanta, GA.
Katharine Cristiani
Three Truths and a Lie
- I swallowed a bee. The sap of Welch’s grape juice rolled in a can out of the vending machine’s lips. It slipped down my throat, sweetened my brain for a test. The teacher was late. I chugged the last sip like a shot. A glass shard pierces my airway. Not the warm burn of Jack Daniel’s, rather a summertime barefoot step on a nail. I spit purple. A bee flies out. The school nurse runs for an epipen. I heal with milkshakes.
- I hate oreos. They say I’m un-American. And it’s true in a way. I do not pledge allegiance or wave a flag unless it is stolen and waves upside down. I do not understand the appeal of chocolate crumble that is not chocolate but not a wafer under the tongue or a graham cracker broken in two before a nap.
- I have broken six bones. In this order: left wrist, right pinky, left heel, my only nose, right second toe, right hand; a twisty slide, a game, a horse, a water ski, drunken stairs, bike meets trolley tracks. Friends will point out none of these are significant. Not when compared to brain surgery. But I am ok. Sixty five or so MRIs say so. I ask my doctor the long term side effects of MRI contrast, she says, you are the lab rat. How do you feel?
The lie: it is all true.
Katharine Cristiani is a mother, union organizer and Pushcart nominated poet who calls Philadelphia home. Her chapbook, Preserving the Unraveled, is forthcoming (Finishing Line Press). Her work appears in San Pedro Review, Literary Mama, Full House Literary Magazine and elsewhere. She builds campfires in any weather with love and prowess.
Simon Christiansen
Polis Cum Laude
The city grows like moss on the forest floor.
I watch from a nearby branch,
As roads form grids of rivulets.
As exuberant life settles into steady rhythms.
Are they happier? I trill,
As they construct the frames of their days.
The moss covers the trunks of former trees.
Does the new green compare to the leaves?
Moss and trees both belong to the woods.
Simon Christansen’s poetry has been published in Plum Tree Tavern, Bluepepper and Compass Rose Literary Journal. He has also written several short stories and award-winning works of interactive fiction. He has won three Xyzzy awards and been shortlisted for the Niels Klim Award for best Danish science fiction novelette.