Archive #46
April, 2017
Burning Man Diary
blasphemy courted with anecdotal perversity limitless chatter echoes through the canyon all now weeping at the sight of blind hypocrisy catching the orbs dancing with a butterfly net seeking a peace but tripping through garbage sands stained with the blood from star shards music calms the beast, deep the jungle roars pinnacle of life, enchanted in an icy cold desert. tutelage from shamans moving to a spirit drum casting vows of pious devotional decadence earthy spirited flute touches the heart and soul the burning man tosses ink onto the parchment. Read the poetry of Ken Allan Dronsfield Read a profile of Ken Allan Dronsfield
Sister Mary's Eyebrows
Summer evening with visiting Sister Patricious and Sister Mary. Sister Mary has been teaching us to chase the devil. But now playing cards are packed away, and Horlick’s is being made. There is a firm knocking at the door, Sister Mary seems surprised that an unexpected visitor could be calling at such a late hour. The visitor is my 6ft tall, long-haired friend, Aidan. Sister Mary looks shocked that I should have a gentleman caller so late in the evening. Her eyebrows are somewhat raised. Aidan is ushered in to the dining room, where we are all gathered. He needs to speak with me about our plans to attend the Glastonbury festival. Sister Mary’s eyebrows are now walking up her forehead. We continue our discussions and Sister Mary gathers I’m going to be in all male company. Her eyebrows climb closer toward her hairline. Simon has his own tent, and Aidan has secured a good sized tent for me, him, and Joel to squeeze into. Sister Mary’s eyebrows are now teetering on the brink, eager to escape and throw themselves off her cliff side face. If it weren’t for her habit, keeping them from encroaching higher, I do believe they would have taken the leap and fallen off.
Nasty Girls Pantoum
“Do you think I'm a nasty girl?” ~Vanity 6 “The only nasty thing I like is the nasty groove.” ~Miss Jackson Am I such a nasty woman? I’ve cleaned my hair, I’ve clipped my nails, I have made sure to smile and baby, I’m not being so mean. I’ve cleaned my hair, I’ve clipped my nails I washed each inch of my body So I won’t be so mean And dressed in well-laundered clothes. I washed each inch of my body And didn’t linger on the special parts Got dressed in well-laundered clothes Left the house with good intentions I didn’t linger on the special parts So I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings I went high, I stay high When the rest of the world went low. So I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings, I acted like a perfect lady When the rest of the world went low. Am I such a nasty woman? Read the poetry of DeMisty D. Bellinger Read a profile of DeMisty D. Bellinger
Dream on the Balcony
frosty silence without the pigeons dumbed the miserable cooing a load of shiny white shit on the railing of the balcony the wind pulls the curtains in the air wave, white flag sign of surrender, sign of peace I step outside put the air rifle beside me down on the pavement riddled with hail flaunting lifeless feathered bodies with eyes closed I come upright in the pale sun spread my arms take a deep breath soon the street will flood the crowd, provided with flags cheers, chants, claps for the brave calls my name just one more moment, one more dream it feels good to be a hero inside in a little time the loneliness of a tired man Read the poetry of Edjo Frank Read a profile of Edjo Frank
from Selected Haiku
summer heat - on the bamboo twig debating ants ❧ tipping point - on the church's window moon limbs ❧ autumn wind - the loud gyration of maple seeds ❧ fading dusk - beside the highway lane a dying pheasant Read the poetry of Goran Gatalica Read a profile of Goran Gatalica
Dear Auntie,
Once, a therapist showed me a chart of the upper and lower intestines diseased and distended from years of laxative abuse. I’m telling you this because of all the times you said Pretty in the cradle means Ugly at the table. My belly has its own orbit of lovers who circle like the three suns of Kelt-4Ab I am the hot Jupiter I am a planet made of cake sweet dense creamy with frosting to make one swoon. I have the teeth marks to prove it. My hips and breasts are asteroids their trajectory knows no boundaries outside of gravity and the fullness of the Universe. My purview is a constellation. I am called hot tomato/ Goddess / siren / curvy Buxom / shapely / voluptuous and those who grab on don’t let go. Read the poetry of Janette Schafer Read a profile of Janette Schafer
Light Is Just the Dark
Pretending there is no glory in death, just death; the remembering of others and much forgetting too, until there is nothing left but the whimpering of rangy pack animals, the mailman out of the job, leaking jars of sea water the myth and the terror… sit in the dark, no matter, the light is just the dark pretending, sit there as well if you wish; squash a bug underfoot then ask it about glory and the bug will not answer you as it is now busy with the business of not being there. Read the poetry of Ryan Quinn Flanagan Read a profile of Ryan Quinn Flanagan
from More Selected
Haiku and Tanka the first bumblebee drunk on so little sunshine blunders through the wood ❦ the space inside trees full of green shifting leaflight sliced through by finches with scimitar certainty in the quickening of spring ❦ darkness before dawn sliding off a wet slate roof the eye of the moon ❦ how flimsy the fence that keeps me out of the wood its firm intentions shouldered aside by badgers and ducked by the dancing hare Read the poetry of Catherine Baker Read a profile of Catherine Baker
The Cricket
A cricket called my attention not to mention what it spoke to me —Whenever you weep over unfulfilled dreams call me over and I'll cric- cric to you A cricket hopped twice just in front of me it caught my sight as it might again speak to me And so it did —Whenever you are sorry for unfulfilled doings call me over and I'll double cric to you I could see no cricket hopping around me but for my delight during all that night double crics were heard inside of me But I knew what they meant Sorrow crept over my heart and I wept all night long Read the poetry of Amauri Solon Read a profile of Amauri Solon
interior of a poem
Skewed merciless geography That does not know my name, A river of inksome potential And tiptoeing displacement. A coterie of critics gathered To ponder the intricacy Of its structure, unstructured, Yet vibrant in its build, And applaud the mishaps. And a famished reading Audience, deaf of one Ear, thirsty for ink. When you’re here, I dream Of the beginning of every Burning thought, When you’re gone, I feel It all, in convulsions Of something bearable And I come to inhabit The distance, in maiden words. Read the poetry of Witty Fay Read a profile of Witty Fay |
Burnt Offerings
Do you want to stone me because I might be a heretic or an agnostic to your faith? Maybe you should just crucify me, splay me, tie my limbs and nail me with old rusted spikes upon an intersection of fact and fantasy. Will you do this for my redemption? I’m not worthy hang me upside down let the blood rush to my head then you can cut me down chop me up piecemeal feast on my body drink my blood. Take what is left of my remains burn them in a sacrificial flame scatter the ashes in the wind or place them in your chalice keep them in your private catacombs. And then you can try to resurrect me drown me in your holy water a baptism to make me a martyr for your salvation. Read the poetry of Peter V. Dugan Read a profile of Peter V. Dugan
March
Under this last snow, my garden Virgin grins beneath her tippet, my resin rabbit endures the drifts salting his ears, my rooted pots in seeming emptiness sit dreaming. March. But I see November’s firefly flakes sizzling on the grass-- cool enough then for you to shiver on your front porch in a flannel shirt, your lighter’s flame rising unreflective, a signal flare-- shadowing your face, your false perfection of despair. Read the poetry of Angele Ellis Read a profile of Angele Ellis
Clapper Bridge: Credit: Wikipedia Commons
Clapper Bridge
The giant’s pebble is caught mid-skim, wedged on dry stone pillars. And underneath the East Dart river is a reluctant slip of amber. It drifts away through gorses that rake the eyes with spines and yellow. Tight fists of bracken wait for spring’s looms to tease them free, weave them into summer’s patterns. Larks swallow sky and air, pour it back in a stream of song and you stand on the clapper bridge that goes nowhere from nowhere. A granite staple pinning this Read the poetry of Paul Mortimer Read a profile of Paul Mortimer
Fireflies
They visit my dreams of late. In daylight hours, glow in memory. The twinkle, blinking lights, their warmth. Worry these wondrous visits might disappear. I travel in night, without moon, stars, sun. My Labradors, my partner guides, sleep unconcerned nearby. What will happen— will, in its time. Still, I dream of fireflies. Desire to whisk their energy out of the black night. As one tickles my fisted palm with gentle flutters, I reassure this nervous fairy, no sealed jar for you. Drawing her close, I urgently whisper Tell me, firefly, your secret of light. Maybe it will unlock mine. Read the poetry of Rea Meade Read a profile of Rea Meade
“I ain’t no sit-down man”
he says his spine bent beneath anthracite years. he works silently without pause, intuits potential in scavenged objects. Push-pull he hauls metal scraps― sharp edged wire, mattress coils bicycle parts, paint cans― to his 60-watt shed gathers lighter scraps― twigs, bird feathers, acorns, splayed leaves brittle with death boils coffee in a tin pot crumbles, smears an earth cake on wood textures violet wall hangings with house paint bought on sale the afternoon light fades as decay’s vintage heaps up around him. a shape emerges beneath scarred fingers that wield a welding iron and tame the jagged remnants. Read the poetry of Judith Dorian Read a profile of Judith Dorian
Blood Soup
She called the white ducks with a soft Clucking of her tongue and they came to Her busy hands for the hard corn she shelled. Taking a fat one up in her arms, soothing the Down with her cheek, she cooed and sang to it, While the eager beak bit at her palm cup. She bowed the graceful head down to sleep Beneath the perfect white wing and keeping Her place on the long neck, like a finger in a Book, she brought up the porcelain bowl to Hold in her knees, in one motion. I can still See the shining blade layering through the Orderly feathers, through the sleeping veins. Headless, featherless duck swam in clear water, Dark blood, carrots and apples, black prunes, Parsley, pepper, thyme until the meat fell Away from the bone and pieces floated among the White kluski clouds in a dark brown broth. Every Bit of the down she saved for small pillows. When she gave them to my children, she said They won't remember me, so tell them these Were from the duck feather woman. They took them Eagerly from her knotted fingers. Read the poetry of Phil Boiarski Read a profile of Phil Boiarski
The White Boat The child's world is born on a white boat but these children have fixed on dead birds and dead suns, a papier-mâché baby wailing and paper-trees littered with old cartons, cigarette-packs, everything documented without magic or mercy: their multiple-voice shrilling. It spits in your eye an anti-revolution dropping warnings over plugged-up rivers as a frilly lady smiles papery out of the crumpled span of her hat and the last white boat sticks on a black canal. Read the poetry of Katherine Gallagher Read a profile of Katherine Gallagher
Replay
Before I walk away, returning to a new season of my life, let’s rewind this journey for one last view. The thrills, near misses, and countless conversations melted together, making me the true color I have become. Wherever I am is your home to come back to. A Mindful Vacation Between each breath one, maybe two seconds at most, a tiny space of nothingness. My passport can’t get me there. Driving faster, running harder, multitasking while eating lunch working later, doing more… no closer to my destination. “Where would you like to travel to?” they ask. someplace between inhale and exhale. Read the poetry of Ali Grimshaw Read a profile of Ali Grimshaw
Tabula Rasa
Kindergarteners race across the hardtop back into the hallway. Faster children run circles around the slower children. George yells “tag, you’re it.” Little Frankie falls to the ground after Ellie pushes him. “She hit me,” he cries. He’s cheating,” she yells back. Tommy pulls Mary’s hair, Mary kicks him. Rousseau and Calvin tumble into the classroom wrestling with each other. Cal mocks Rosey “Your whole nature is a seed of sin.” Rosey protests, “We are noble savages.” The teacher closes his eyes to the noise for a few seconds and shakes his head before breaking up the fights and getting the children under control “They both are wrong,” He mutters to himself. “They don’t know what they are doing. They’re children.” Read the poetry of Frank C Modica Read a profile of Frank C Modica
Dripping Water
a thousand feet of ravine so steep the road insinuates itself back and forth climbing the dry ground a tangle of overgrown brush, wild peas, pines, half-dead oaks the stream long dried it flows only in the wettest years, a few hours at most the land parched despite the daily fogs that rise, and birds— quail, jays juncos must forage beside rabbits and squirrels for water to sustain them-- how in this wide vista they know the one tiny drip of a broken garden hose and land one by one to sip carefully from this small leak-- my silent form immaterial. Read the poetry of Emily Strauss Read a profile of Emily Strauss |
Repression
Freud’s shirts starched stiff arrested attire his dickey erect and shiny Press on the pleasure Refry desire Stoke the Freudian fire Repress son prodigal boy always returns It was supposed to be about liberation but turned out to be about how unfree freedom is Early on Freud pressed the foreheads of his patients forcing down what they’d exposed Freud’s trousers stood by themselves at night like a fireman’s uniform Freud slid down the panic pole to rescue us from what we didn’t know His pants stood alone like those awful elephant legs turned into garbage cans and proved once again what was erect eventually falls And those cigars A caesura in the preconscious precancerous mouth A vagina dentata that analytic floss can’t repair or prevent Only an opera of operations A prosthetic jaw that made the professor whistle when he spoke So he rarely uttered a sound which caused his American sycophants to ape a gaping analytic silence What they thought was psychoanalytic technique was actually the old man’s vanity Read the poetry of Charlie Brice Read a profile of Charlie Brice
The Ego's Embrace
It’s hard to avoid the embrace of the Ego, it’s a charismatic, sexless thing that steps in when you are praying or simply taking a walk offers you heady opportunities like world power, a trophy wife or a brand-new Ferrari. You say “let go of my hair, don’t pull like that I am just taking a walk in the woods reciting Psalm 23 watching the way the veins of this leaf are opening taking me to a deeper understanding.” But the Ego, as always, has a different idea of pleasure fogging your glasses with excitement putting you on stilts that no one else owns saying you will see over mountains then leaving you just as suddenly with no more eyes to see how you and this leaf are one both breathing the air of the universe both unfolding season after season arriving at a depth of your own. Read the poetry of Mark Gordon Read a profile of Mark Gordon
A Poem Found in a Cave
~Discovered behind a stone in deep, barren dirt. Off on ancient ridges by Falls that tumble down to A hand that waves at Me in the dark I Seem to see walls in mist and Gray men in suits tapping Down alleys that I knew I could Find once but lost To a song sung on cold Nights by fires that burn in Deep canyon caves that we Can only find by the bright Lights of hands traced on Ancient ridge walls. I… Think so much of days in Forests and feelings of running Like a child lost… In the dark. Read the poetry of Matthew Henningsen Read a profile of Matthew Henningsen
Photo art by Diana Matisz (Click art for expanded view)
Interim
fevered dreams abandoned me thankfully, left me to my own devices, and i found myself wakened from this somnolence pressed to curvilinear ridges to the hard insistence of cool rough planes unfurled beneath me my fingers stretched to grasp every surface inch of raw hibernal pleasure you've been storing up since winter cached until i wanted you in my fevered dreams Enjoy the poetry and art of Diana Matisz Read a profile of Diana Matisz L.L. Barkat: A Photograph, A PaintingAfter a Photograph of Dark Firs You see how the trees are touching how the gap in the sky is only white space how they are drawn to traverse, extend, find each other over time, and the road keeps going over the lip of what is seen. French Painting On the wide space where the windows overlook their blue squares of possibility. Let’s lean away together. You with your emerald hair. I with my gold—creating a single amber shadow. Read the poetry of L.L. Barkat Read a profile of L.L. Barkat
Maternal Line:
If you were my daughter: you would know the joy of walking barefoot on a rainy day And how mud squelches just so between your toes And how the air smells of rebirth and uncried tears from what life throws in your direction, every day. You would know the stars in their constellations better than the ones on television, and the color of your dreams would matter more than the color of your nail polish. You would know how to enjoy going to the movies or to the beach or on vacation, alone. You would enter the playing field in tennis shoes, not sandals. The integrity of your “no” would value as much as your “yes,” and you would know to reject anyone who thinks otherwise. You would learn how to forgive, walk away from, and firebomb your enemies- and which application suits what situation. Without apology. If you were my daughter, you would never need to hide or deny or negate your love, and its expression; you would never be ashamed of your desires and passions. your boyfriend or girlfriend would be welcome in my home. And when love forsakes you, when dreams elude you, when employers overlook you, when life abuses you in the street- you will learn the truth That the same genes that give compassion also produce warriors- and they are hereditary in the maternal line. Read the poetry of Marie Anzalone Read a profile of Marie Anzalone
Matchsticks
you ask me are we close but I have never heard your laugh or felt beneath the cotton of your shirt or had the pleasure of this dance the female cardinal rams her body into glass my sister looped a rope around her neck and hung her body in the shed the secrets that I kept the secrets that you kept I never knew you had a twin until the visitation and that he died and that you died along with him I ask you are we close we are matchsticks in a matchbox send me some skin a sentence that you penned nothing more intimate than an exhalation Read the poetry of Reka Jellema Read a profile of Reka Jellema
Xanax & Chocolate
When the clock’s hands strangle the honeymoon phase, I’ll remember today. When the laughter turns to crying and we glare more than screw –– when the passion starts to shrivel in a drought of lust, I’ll remember today. When this quiet bedroom becomes a full-blown warzone and our hearts are fighting to the death –– when flower-vases shatter upon peeling-paint walls, I’ll remember today. I’ll remember today –– your hand on my chest, your Xanax tongue against the roof of my mouth. Today: before “darling” and “baby” are replaced with “asshole” and “douchebag.” Before a light caress turns into a close-fisted punch. Before my knees are bruised from begging you to stay. Today: before our chocolate charisma melts in the poison sun. Before the thorns grow bigger than the head of the rose. Today, you are far from gone. Your eyes are loyal dogs. They do not wander. They’re fixed on me as though I’m made of something pure. But even as you’re perched on my bed with that firecracker grin, and the past and the future simmer in the dreamy heat from the present –– and even as you lean in for another kiss while everything around us runs like fresh paint on the hottest day of the year, I think you should know that I already miss you. Read the poetry of B. Diehl Read a profile of B. Diehl |
