Issue #36
Ann Pedone
Toward a Hermeneutics of Language
in which Poetry is Mistaken for Violets
It could almost be music this excess of heat
and yes spring is gathering (a promise)
the moisture of my body up into the clouds
could this be what makes the plum tree blossom
Ann Pedone graduated from Bard College in 1992 with a degree in English Literature. She has a PhD in Chinese Language and Literature from UC Berkeley. Ann’s work has recently appeared in Comstock Review (spring/summer 2019), Adelaide, Apricity, Birmingham Arts Journal, Cholla Needles (forthcoming), and Visions International (forthcoming). She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Matthew Daley
every american dream
shovels of hot scatter rock
edit the street
while
pigeons dance experiments
for crusted renown
when
kicked knotted Coke bottles
spin kissed promises
for
manhole smoke signal seances
shout the underground
to
withered flower frames leaning
window confessions ajar
Matthew Daley has written commercials, documentaries, graphic novels, and the upcoming collection The Poet’s Guide to Basketball. He has taught every level from 5th grade through Graduate School, always finding ways to sneak great poetry into his curriculum. He’s a father of three, husband of one, and a terrible singer/dancer who tries to turn many of his moments into a musical. His poetry can be found in 34th Parallel Magazine and The Cabinet of Heed.
Amanda Pendley
bite mark from sorry
I am an edible arrangement woman
in that I am a gifted apology instead of the real thing
in that I am a 2 for 1 sale on almost expired blueberries
instead of the arm handpicking mangoed stationary
in that I am the valence that results from pinball between
guilt and rage, indecision of fault line mind
in that I am a word that doesn’t exist in the landscape of a father
a daughter’s first muttered word in a portrait of pink tulle
in that I am the embodiment of sobbing o of origin point
of peach pricked needle on the chain of a not-macaroni necklace
in that I have found the only way to keep men the hell away
I douse body in plum oil, bear grapes like garlic
because if I’ve learned anything from confines of religious view
it is that boys steer clear of the women holding fruit
Amanda Pendley is a twenty-year-old writer from Kansas City who is currently studying Creative Writing and Publishing at the University of Iowa. Her recent and forthcoming publications include Vagabond City Lit, Savant Garde Literary Magazine (forthcoming Issue #3), Storm of Blue Press (forthcoming in issue 6: robbers), and Ghost City Review. She often finds inspiration in Lorde songs, movement, and the wonders of midwestern peculiarities.
Sean Lynch
After Sappho
Sparrow perched on barbed wire
now I know
your claws.
The strength
of smallness.
Goldenrod smile
a soft fear
your eyes
your eyes.
I look into your skin
see what you want me to see
chirp
at me
like birds who scream
among the trees
on city blocks.
I can see the past in your hands
they are the only part of your body
that look worn.
Your hands are tiny tools
that change lives.
Your hands have scars
and wrinkles which stretch
up my spine. Your fingers
take root into something unknowable
inside myself a lake I now toe-touch
and feel what I’ve known
before but lost
feelings drowned to death
now rise like Lazarus.
I reach into a dark purple pool
and pull out a marble statuette
of Clio all pearl colored
except a laurel
of real hyacinth in her hair.
She speaks to me in ancient Greek
but I do not understand
the only word I can make out is hand
and my eyes are scarred
your image seared into my memory.
You are my January springtime.
A cold glimmer
a cliché in words
not in thoughts
softer than thoughts
are the ancient hands
of my lover.
Softer than city flowers
are your hands
which hold mine
in the amber light of your eyes
your flaxen eyes.
Softer than skyscrapers
are your sinful hands
which have plucked out mine own eyes
drawn toward the pink scar on your knuckle.
The cancer only increased your beauty.
Your hellish beauty.
You, a ninety-pound Hades
eyes the color of cheetah skin
your pupils the soft spots
that strike me so I can rest
inside your retina.
Receive my layers of light
I will let your river bleed into me.
Your corneas carnations
that send me messages
unrestrained.
I do not know you
but I love you.
I do not need to know you
to feel lost
to feed on light
reflected by your eyes.
I only care about the present
in your presence.
Sparrow perched
on barbed wire
now I know your claws.
Falling in Love During the Apocalypse
Last night I counted the freckles on her shoulders, but like stars in the sky I lost track. Still, I try to make sense of her skin. Why it haunts me. I stared at her, wondered how love is possible.
A thunderstorm rolled through her. Purple clouds formed ominously on her body. She survived not one but two lightning strikes. The jolts left impressions, pronounced mountains of searing pain as her flesh tore inside out. The color of her skin has almost healed now, a Pacific blue.
It’s been three weeks since she escaped death, and three months since she was just a distant star to me. Now I orbit her like Mercury around the Sun. Yet there’s no message that I could send that can express how she consumes me. Gives me endless energy. She illuminates my body. Eliminates pain. Plants poppy seeds in my fields. Her flowers bloom within me, cannot be ripped out, and so I’m wholly overtaken, wrapped in her roots both externally and internally transformed by her light and by her singularity-level gravity.
Only four miles separate our homes, although thousands of buildings stand in our way. A river spans the divide. I will swim across the Schuylkill today, if I must. If every bridge collapses I will breaststroke through sludge and slime and ruins while the city burns and skyscrapers collapse, shedding glass into the water while I struggle to reach her. I will reach her. Just to see her here one last time.
I only know that I must hold her while the apocalypse rages around us. I reach her, touch her – feel her solar warmth. I look into her eyes so that her image remains even in death. The lights of the world will fade, but my vision of her is projected by love, and so we will survive.
Sean Lynch is a poet and editor who lives in South Philadelphia. His fourth chapbook, On Violence, was published by Radical Paper Press in 2019. Poems have appeared in various journals including Hobart, Poetry Quarterly, and Drunk Monkeys. He’s the Founding Editor of Serotonin, Editor of Hoot Review, Managing Editor for Thirty West Publishing, and hosts the Moonstone Poetry Reading Series.
Ayesha Asad
Prayer Run
when asked / about freedom / I look / to the muezzin / ghost scaling ceilings / & hissing / heavy songs / to power / a land / electricity uprooting / city sleepwalkers / whose cleaved dreams / restart / later that night / & the streams of milk / they follow / like a school congregating / at the mosque / filtered thoughts stripped away / to make room for One Being / to ablute in holy wells / get up, city boy & girl / & hear the trains / of homeless / unwrap turkey sandwiches / & thrust into cold asphalt / wake up & listen / to ambulance sirens / ringing your doorbell / wake up & follow the angels / away from the alarms / & listen, it’s time to pray
Ayesha Asad is from Dallas, Texas. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review (Fall 2020), Menacing Hedge, Santa Clara Review (vol. 107, Issue 2), and elsewhere. Her writing has been recognized by the Robert Bone Memorial Poetry Prize. She studies Literature and Biology at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Kristin Garth
Death by Chocolate
or: The Last Meal of Prince Pondicherry
‘Nonsense!’ shouted the Prince.
‘I’m not going to eat my palace! I’m not even going to
nibble the staircase or lick the walls! I’m going to live in it!”
Prince Pondicherry to Willy Wonka
Is death delicious in a chocolate
house? Does it wiggle from a Black Forest
hole, a small white chocolate mouse? Closet
baseboard detail of normality he forced
into your chocolate castle fantasy,
coy contractor chocolatier. Overnight
palace appears before the boiling sea
he fears when chocolate walls meet sunrise
in India and capsize into yard,
mint chocolate blades. Swim against the frothed
cocoa waves. Hundred rooms, bricks of bars
liquified, swallowed under stars. This trough
of death commissioned must be bittersweet,
rodent cherry cordial heart between your teeth.
Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net and Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. In addition to Neologism Poetry Journal, her sonnets have stalked magazines like Glass, Yes, Five2One and Luna Luna. She is the author of 16 books of poetry including the forthcoming Golden Ticket (Roaring Junior Press). Follow her on Twitter (@lolaandjolie) and her website (kristingarth.com).
Rodd Whelpley
Tennis at Mah-Kee-Nac, 1983
That Berkshire summer on Stockbridge Bowl
we put the boys in their bunks, waved
to the counselor on duty, happy it was not our turn
on the park bench to guard until midnight
blank Mohican cabins where nothing moved,
except mice gnawing nests from Archies and Batmans
stowed in the rafters atop luggage we would pack in August,
a solstice band of Indian braves beneath, dreaming
of autumn, their bar mitzvahs, homes in Manhattan
and Short Hills or their parents in the picture postcards
sent from Monaco, Wimbledon, Tel Aviv, Paris.
In daylight, dressed in cheap, college-boy whites, we lied
to those ten-year-olds, promised we were one of them,
told them that at TRW my father was the W,
that yours was inexplicably the T. We never questioned
why we tried to prove ourselves to children
when nights the courts were ours – no lessons,
but ones we’d give ourselves about this game,
which got us jobs at country clubs and camp, Har-Tru
on which we slid for backhands with lines
lit perfect by halogen and moon, the racket
of Tanglewood, our noisy next door neighbor,
Seiji Ozawa and the BSO pouring Brahms into the dark.
That matchless season. Me and you across the net
at love all, refusing to keep score against the symphony
across the lake, hearing in those sustaining volleys
what it takes, finally, to be rich – rhythmic thwacks
from our sheep gut strings and the melodies from theirs.
Rodd Whelpley manages an electric efficiency program for 32 cities across Illinois and lives near Springfield. Catch as Kitsch Can, his first chapbook, was published in 2018. The Last Bridge is Home, his second chapbook, will come out in 2021. Find him at www.RoddWhelpley.com.