by Lawrence Gladeview
erbacce-press, UK
I’m a proctologist
reggie said
thinking
it would
send her walking
& we could
get back to our beer
boy
was
he wrong.
Delivered by a lesser poet these vignettes would be amusing; but in the deftly aloof hands of Gladeview, they excel in irony, pacing, imagery, and dammit, likeability. From the defiant son in law who has unwisely decided to serve cider not eggnog, to the tough talking badass whose stance against a mugger makes his girlfriend laugh, these rapid-fire poems are clever without mercy. The sparse language strikes just the right tone for an affable wisecracking character navigating his way through the fast times of young adulthood; times, he will soon discover, that go by faster than he can ever imagine.
by Susan Yount
Hyacinth Girl Press
Hurt was hanging like an ambush,
like an asshole just waiting
to break up the night
~ Elementary Catastrophe
Stark, frank, and haunting, Catastrophe Theory excels as a collection of unapologetic vignettes featuring a narrative in search of her identity/power. Walking the path so many of us do, tethered to a man who doesn’t listen, doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care, poet Susan Yount demonstrates how the mathematics behind Catastrophe Theory—the study of abrupt changes in behavior—can be compared to human dynamics. Several of the poems incorporate equations where a = “An insect on a white wall should I kill it too late” and v = “restless vagina syndrome.” Other poems describe the harrowing adventures of being fragile, of trusting. In “I Worked for a Boss who Wanted Sex,” Yount describes various positions of subservience to icky bosses who thought she was smart, hated her, paid her to pose, liked to watch her work, and concludes with the boss who took her to lunch as a reward:
I drank cocktails, felt smart, could use tape.
I could pose. I had benefits. I gained pounds.
I talked business. I priced services. I had manicures.
I wore black shoes.
Is she happy? Is this what she wants? We’re not sure. What matters is that she is finally in charge. Yount’s skill and finesse and courage is on every page. She is a master and this book is a treasure.
Other Gods and All Women
by Jane Rosenberg LaForge
Aldrich Press
but with our impulses; A precious
curtsy, the last cigarette, the grind
of ashes into wine and sand.
~ “Metaphor/Moth”
With a title like that, you expect sexy, steamy sass. At least I did—I’ve been a fan of Jane Rosenberg LaForge for a few years, and know her to be a mistress of imagery, insight and beautiful mindfulness. But I wasn’t prepared for this melancholy LaForge, this voice of sorrow, of bittersweet looking back. From poignant memories of her parents, to watching her sister die, LaForge paints a breathtaking picture of life’s Entirety with scenes that swing from a hygiene-challenged lover to a slumber party to her own profile on Facebook. Uh huh, it’s all here, and no, it’s not all pretty. But for me, the final powerful line says it all: “Where there is not a broken heart / but a muscle rendered blunt / into a numb instrument / there is a daughter.” With Apologies is an explosion of emotions, both grisly and exquisite.
Jane Rosenberg LaForge lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. She is the author of two chapbooks, After Voices (Burning River Press) and Half Life (Big Table Publishing.) Her short fiction and critical and personal essays have appeared online and in print.
by Katharyn Grant
Monkey Puzzle Press
There is nothing sadder than
an idealistic young artist
who agrees to sell his soul
in exchange for a reliable position
$400 a week
and some benefits
~ “The Understudy”
With a deft poet’s hand, Grant conjures up images, characters, conflict, and powerful—often painful—epiphanies with a minimum of words. Lushly illustrated with her own paintings and photographs, Interior Life is an adventure for the eyes and a journey for the spirit. “With each new thought,” Grant writes, “I am multiplying exponentially, selves destined now to wander, air born, noiseless, but for the sound of wings beating against air. Perhaps this is what is meant by karma.” We think she’s on to something!
a familiarity
and yet so unknown
I wanted to see him everywhere
So I carried his face around
in my mind
a glowing embryo
until it gestated to term
and I gave birth to him
~ “Love I”
Other Gods and All Women
by Jane Rosenberg LaForge
Aldrich Press
but with our impulses; A precious
curtsy, the last cigarette, the grind
of ashes into wine and sand.
~ “Metaphor/Moth”
With a title like that, you expect sexy, steamy sass. At least I did—I’ve been a fan of Jane Rosenberg LaForge for a few years, and know her to be a mistress of imagery, insight and beautiful mindfulness. But I wasn’t prepared for this melancholy LaForge, this voice of sorrow, of bittersweet looking back. From poignant memories of her parents, to watching her sister die, LaForge paints a breathtaking picture of life’s Entirety with scenes that swing from a hygiene-challenged lover to a slumber party to her own profile on Facebook. Uh huh, it’s all here, and no, it’s not all pretty. But for me, the final powerful line says it all: “Where there is not a broken heart / but a muscle rendered blunt / into a numb instrument / there is a daughter.” With Apologies is an explosion of emotions, both grisly and exquisite.
Jane Rosenberg LaForge lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. She is the author of two chapbooks, After Voices (Burning River Press) and Half Life (Big Table Publishing.) Her short fiction and critical and personal essays have appeared online and in print.
by Karen Kelsay
White Violet Press
whenever we walked into town—it drove
me crazy. Every slightest change in season
you'd find a little coppice in the grove,
or see a beetle laboring across
a fallen leaf. I had to break my pace,
transform into a stone that gathered moss.
I couldn't keep annoyance off my face.
And then my knee decided I should learn
to stroll with leisure, letting pain be teacher.
I spotted lilies, pale asparagus fern,
looked up to see the pear tree's every feature.
A faster stride? It almost seems unholy.
How glad I am you still like walking slowly.
~ “Gathering Moss”
In this pop culture world of free verse, iPods and grit, is there a place for formal rhyming poetry? Three days ago I would have said No. But then I read Amytis Leaves Her Garden by Karen Kelsay, and my perception of formal poetry was flipped over, like an unremarkable egg transformed into a magical omelet! No tedious descriptions here, as I feared, but vibrant, colorful characters engaged in very real life—from the disillusioned lover in “A Beating Wing” and teasing “A Proper Man” with a silken thigh, to the heartache of watching parents age, Amytis is funny, sad, and encompassing of all the powerful beauty in each day through the eyes of this exceptionally gifted poet.
It's difficult to figure who'll go first;
mom, with her heart attack, pinched nerve and hip
that wakes her in the night—the chemo drip
still in her veins, or dad, his mass submersed
in slothfulness, who might conceivably
sit in his chair and sink into a coma,
unnoticed, till the dinnertime aroma
would cease to wake him (unbelievably).
My mother swims ten laps a day, hell-bound
to ride her bike at eighty-five. She walks
and chatters constantly. Father seldom talks,
embellishes dessert with cream. The ground
moans beneath his widening girth. My mom
is trim and neat, her sewing room's in order;
dad's office looks like he's a first class hoarder.
The winning post waits like an atom bomb,
or unseen trophy in the 4th dimension.
My father sitting on the couch, no stress,
and mother cooking in her Sunday dress.
I watch the finish line with apprehension.
by Carol Gilbertson
Finishing Line Press, 2011
against the sky's last bloom
as the dark earth reaches up
to nudge the crescent moon
into its dim position.
~ “Night Rising”
Carol Gilbertson is one of those poets whose writing is so gorgeous that even though you plan to come up with a way to say how wonderful it is you wind up quoting her. From the "stun of colors" of an early June day to "the certainty of Midwest wives who chose a marker for both, her date still blank after the dash," you find yourself marveling at Gilbertson’s appreciation of the lyrical world all around. But her eye detects and delights in irony, too, as she stands before the judge wishing she had the right not to serve on jury duty, or in the rueful ponderings in "Lapse"—a shoe raised to the foot before the sock is on / the alarm shut off before bed / jam put away before the toast is done. This collection is a powerful performance and exactly what poetry is meant to be. Dancing, indeed!
by Jim Davis
the rings left on the Oakwood table,
the torn labels from bottles of India brew.
I got fat. She was sad
to be falling out of love with me.
I raised my hand into the air.
Walking through Chicago winter, you can
only see your breath if you stop moving.
A taxi slowed to see if I was fare.
And that’s pretty much the whole story.
“The Winter I Drank Mostly Pale Ale”
Down and out doesn’t even begin to cover it, but the good news is, Jim Davis doesn’t want you feeling sorry for him in Feel and Beat Again, his new limited-edition collection of poetry. Sure, he’s walked off a wine buzz too soon, he’s broke, he’s using a bundled-up sweatshirt for a pillow, and the bruised walls are peeling. But all he wants, really, is to take you for a road trip past all the gritty, raw scenery in his head. Here you will meet Rick and Johnny, the “overworked software repairmen who loosened their ties” and started a post-punk rock group “with jazz indecencies;” the old man at the train station who once got to talk to Mohammed Ali; the girl who played classical music for her dog; the dead rat with flies in sockets “where there used to be hunger and light.” Make no mistake, this ride is grisly! But somehow Davis makes it a gas with his wry Zen acceptance of what IS, the way the Beats did in those moments of startling wisdom. Canny, brilliant and unerringly insightful, Jim Davis lives in a world where nothing is ordinary. Visit him at jimdavispoetry.com.
if any of these plants are real—
the plastic bastards
have tricked me before.
“Assumed Plants”
From a father battling cancer and a persistent skunk’s nocturnal visit to a survivor of Auschwitz and a lesson in how to grieve, it’s all here in Eyes Like Broken Windows, the new collection by Seth Michelson. Nothing is too painful to hold up to the light for examination, and nothing tender and beautiful goes unnoticed. Astonishing and heartbreaking, these poems will leave you breathless; like the hottest, saddest sex you’ve ever had, you’ll wish you could have more, even though with the rapture comes pain. Because that’s what life is, isn’t it? Broken windows, indeed. A rarely-seen oarfish sets the stage for this collection of unexpected treasures reeled in from the depths of Ian C. Smith's psyche. The bait? Tidbits of life—from a liver-spotted man's visit with a daughter he has not seen in years, to a husband dancing with the woman he loves at a party he threw for his wife, to a poet's list of fantasy blurbs (“These clever characters are hard to like. Savagery, but with pity” - John Updike), Smith's writing brazenly acknowledges all that is solemn, sorrowful, and sardonic. Resentment blends with sorrow in Riches for One Poverty for Two, the new collection of poetry by Jenny Rossi. Each brief poem is terse and acerbic, and even Bukowski and Kerouac aren't safe from Rossi's wonderful candor. Darkly honest, these poems face pain with courage, humor, and grace.
Tender innocence collides with the harsh reality of mental illness in Lithium Witness, Nina Bannett's
collection of poetry chronicling her mother's descent into madness. Powerful, painful, and ultimately
filled with grace, these poems treat each moment with a compassion that warms, a patience that
endures, and a love that transcends. Nina Bannett is department chair and associate professor of English at New York City College of
Technology in the City University of New York (CUNY) and teaches courses in writing and women's
literature. She has published articles on Louisa May Alcott, Elizabeth Stoddard and Anzia Yezierska.
Her poetry has appeared in Open Minds Quarterly. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband. Petrichor Today we coracle spin They say that great poetry transports us to a different place, and that is exactly what Adam Hughes has accomplished with Petrichor. Drenched in insight and powerful imagery, Hughes writes with an elegance that would make any poet jealous. From the pool at a YMCA and Pleasant Hill Cemetery where he had a job mowing the lawn, to Gaza where he looked for the Afghan woman on the cover of National Geographic (the one with the beautiful eyes) to Bengali Island, Bimini Road and the rings of Saturn, and back to Ohio—all are stops along his peregrinatio, his holy journey. It was an honor to accompany him. I heard a train last night, a little Adam Hughes was born in 1982 in Lancaster, Ohio. He is a pastor and poet and has worked as a program director for individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities since 2007. His first chapbook, Pilgrim Poems was released in 2010 by Pudding House Press and his poems have appeared widely in print and online in journals such as the New York Quarterly, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Foliate Oak, and West Ward Quarterly. He resides in Lancaster with his wife and two-year-old daughter. Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose Sand falls out of the mouth Not even the tiniest incident of beauty slips past Laura Rodley's watchful eye in her new collection of
poetry, Your Left Wheel is Coming Loose. With tender elegance she presents an array of scenes, from
immigrants on Ellis Island to men at war. And overseeing it all is the noble blue heron, reminding us
that life is about testing the current, gaining strength, and swallowing the wind.
The frost on the hood of our car where I found ~ excerpt from “Hope” Laura Rodley's poetry has appeared in the anthologies Crossing Paths, 911 Peace Project, Anthology of
New England Writers, and in the journals Massachusetts Review, Sanctuary, The National Audubon
Magazine, Boston Literary Magazine, and Quick Fiction, and has been read on WHMP, KVMR, 89.5
FM radio in Nevada City, California, and NPR-affiliated station WAMC in Albany. Your Left Front
Wheel is Coming Loose was nominated for a PEN New England L.L. Winship Award plus Mass Book
Award, and Rappelling Blue Light was also nominated for a Mass Book Award. Her work has been
nominated for Pushcart Prize twice and Best of the Net. She is a freelance writer and photographer. Woman on a Shaky Bridge You see it was very much like this. Drawing from an experiment in which men who'd been instructed to cross a shaky bridge were more
inclined to invite the attractive female interviewer on the other side on a date than men who had just
crossed a solid bridge, Woman on a Shaky Bridge by Millicent Borges Accardi demonstrates that there is no
more fascinating lab animal to study than ourselves. In sixteen haunting literary portraits, she deftly paints
women raped by war, jazz clubs, and two little girls—one will be sent to a concentration camp, one will be
rescued from a well. This stunningly successful blend of heartbreak and happiness takes readers all over
the world, and ever closer to that scared, sacred place within.
They watch Little House on the Prairie Millicent Borges Accardi has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the
California Arts Council, and the Barbara Denning Foundation. Her work has appeared in over 50 literary
publications. In the heart of the rose My body fills with breath, Bear in Mind and Blessings and Curses by Anne Whitehouse Self-help guru Wayne Dyer has said that when you change the way you look at things, the things you
look at change, and no one seems to “own” this wisdom more than Anne Whitehouse as she masterfully
demonstrates in her two collections of poetry, Bear in Mind and Blessings and Curses. She doesn't
deny that life is difficult—from the holocaust to the death of a beloved pet to a fly that resists all
attempts to escape out the doors and window that Whitehouse has left open rather than disposing of
him with a rolled-up newspaper—but celebrates the Divinity of life, love, and what it means to be a
human “being.” Heartfelt, profound, and deeply insightful, her poems matter. A lot. I don't remember how I ended up in the room Anne Whitehouse was born and grew up in Burmingham Alabama. She graduated from Harvard
College and Columbia University. Her novel, Fall Love, can be purchased from her site
AnneWhitehouse.com. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. If There is a Center No One Knows Where it Begins The sea like a tear ~ “If There is a Center No One Knows “The obsidian morning. I hurl my heart out into this incomprehensible starscape...” begins If There is a Center No One Knows Where it Begins by Renee Podunovich, a breathtaking tribute to the seasons of the spirit. With irrepressible zest, she takes us on a Sacred Sight/Seeing tour; from the “vastness of cosmic womb space” to the delicate beauty of the hummingbird's egg shell. “Don’t expect the shoreline to be solid or resemble what you remember as you return from the exhilarating dive under,” warns Podunovich, because Nature, like the inescapable Experience of Life, is always changing, always surprising, and, through Podunovich's eyes, always delighting. “Listen. The belly of the canyon is growling, the wind carries the rain far and away....” and instantly we are there, alert with head tipped, a brisk breeze making us hunch our shoulders, in love with being alive. Every year this: Renee Podunovich's writing has been described as merging science, nature, and soul. She explores human experience in relation to a living planet. Renee lives off the grid in southwest Colorado in an “Earthship” home. Her most recent publications include White Whale Review, The View From Here, RATTLE, Mississippi Review, Boston Literary Magazine and SW Colorado Arts Perspective. To purchase a copy of If There Is a Center No One Knows Where It Begins please visit www.ReneePodunovich.com. A true poet not only sees Divinity in the mundane, but is able to make others see it too. That's exactly what Doug Holder accomplishes with The Man in the Booth in the Midtown Tunnel (Cervená Barva Press, 2008), an extraordinary collection of poems about regular people caught in the act of being fascinating. With humor and compassion Holder presents their stories one by one until you begin to feel as if you are at a party. In a psych ward. And guests wander by, spewing words of wisdom or insanity, and their chaotic thoughts sound uncannily like your own. From the dying man's last request for a hotdog to the colonial woman at the Au Bon Pain to Holder's own niece with her uninhibited breastfeeding policy, you'll meet all the unforgettable people in his life, and like him, will appreciate the humble nobility of their Sacred Process. Doug Holder's poetry and prose has appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, Rattle, Café Review, the new renaissance, Poesy, Home Planet News, Main Street Rag, Caesura, Quercus Review, Illyia's Honey, Istanbul Library Review, Dudley Review (Harvard University) Sahara, Northeast Corridor and many others. He is the founder of the Ibbetson Street Press of Somerville, Mass, the cofounder of the Somerville New Writer's Festival, the curator of the Newton Free library Poetry Series, book review editor of the Wilderness House Literary Review, arts editor for The Somerville News, and the Boston editor for Poesy. He also teaches writing at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass. and Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. When confronted by a title like The Whole Enchilada you don't know what to expect, and the cover's
mysterious and smudged skull offers no clues. With a tabula rasa, I read the first poem, and simply
wasn't prepared for the onslaught of rueful wisdom delivered by this earnestly down and out poet.
Miller's wry observances of ordinary events—the drawer so stuffed with memories that you need to
wrestle it open, the plain and yet somehow appealing girl in the car outside your office window, and the
grim napkin summary of a life decidedly not well spent—amuse, bring pain, cut to the quick. No
wonder this chap won the Cervená Barva Press Chapbook Prize! I consider it one of the best chaps I've
ever read. And trust me when I say I've read about a million! Take the shopping cart and start the trip. Chaos, confusion and despair meet fantasy, imagination and introspection in Ryan Flaherty's Novas. His elegant writing style and unique slant on life can best be summed up by a line from the book itself. It's "A series of events lined up on the table and wrapped in language." It's all that, but it's so much more. Edgy, moody—not your ordinary chapbook. A must read! A story is falling apart in the dull one's mouth. Ryan lives in Dover, NH. His chapbook Live, from the Delay, is available from Small Fires Press. His poems have appeared in a range of journals including Denver Quarterly, Conduit, the New Republic, and Columbia. Life, death, birth, imperfection. Omnivore, by Allan Peterson, addresses all of these and more. Not to remind us that life is hard or that we are flawed. On the contrary! Omnivore assures us that in the midst of life's hardships, in the center of our pain, in the depths of our sadness, all is perfect. The Universe goes on. A beautiful little book, filled with the promise of hope on the horizon. Allan Peterson's work appears widely in print and online literary journals. He has published two award winning full length poetry collections and five chapbooks. Honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the State of Florida and ten nominations for Pushcart Prizes, along with a variety of poetry prizes and anthology inclusions. Visit his website www.allanpeterson.net “...then the future shifted Marvin Gaye sang There's always one who loves more than the other, and Sandy Green absolutely nails this theme in her first chapbook, Pacing the Moon. Beautifully presented by Flutter Press and startling in its imagery, this richly-textured collection is full of painful insights into humans at the height of our vulnerability. Sandy Green, a poet and children's author, has been writing fiction since 2004. Her work has appeared in Victorian Violet Press, Stories for Children, Grey Sparrow Journal, Ibbetson Street Press, Monongahela Riview, and anthologies including Chicken Soup for the Child's Soul. She was a 2008 nominee for Best of the Net and won honorable mention in Robert Brewer's Writer's Digest Poetic Asides Chapbook Contest. She lives in northern Virginia with her husband and two children. Visit her at www.SandyGreen.webs.com. From Pushcart Prize nominee Laura Rodley comes this exquisite collection of poetry. Here minnows trust the sky to bring them gnats, a young woman takes an impromptu road trip to Michigan financed by asparagus-picking money, a dearly-loved ancient dog noses the footprints of raccoons, turtles cross a busy highway to lay eggs, and a close friend loses her hair during chemo. In short, Rappelling Blue Light is about all the most sacred aspects of living, and the importance of observing, experiencing, and being. Perhaps the words “stunning” and “elegant” are overused; but perhaps they are not strong enough to describe Rodley's work.
“I lift to your lips Laura Rodley's poetry has appeared in the anthologies Crossing Paths, 911 Peace Project, Anthology of New England Writers, and in the journals Massachusetts Review, Sanctuary, The National Audubon Magazine, Boston Literary Magazine, and Quick Fiction, and has been read on WHMP, KVMR, 89.5 FM radio in Nevada City, California, and NPR-affiliated station WAMC in Albany. She is a freelance writer and photographer. In 2003 Jane Rosenberg LaForge's father was diagnosed with throat cancer, and her rueful recollections of a voice that wasn't just loud “but voluminous, plunging through a room with all the aplomb of a rock hurled toward a window” inspire us to re-learn with her the seeds of language, the origin of human sound, the words poets have left behind, and especially “the stuff that comes before words.” From nighttime radio shows where deejays held séances for Jim Morrison to stockyards where the cows went on forever, this beautifully-brilliant book is ablaze with savvy, style, and tender insights. It's not just that I can smell the salty ocean air and hear the gentle waves whooosh...shooooo on the shore when I read Emily Scudder's poetry... it's that I find myself transported to a place of closely-examined ennui, dissatisfaction, and desperation for just one hour alone - you know, the mental activities we all engage in but don't have the guts to 'fess up to? Scudder's writing is so honest, so relatable, so likable, dammit! I just want to hang out with her! But at the same time, this is a masterful poet who loves her husband and children, and who possesses an enviable, nearly Zen-like connection with Nature... a woman who appreciates the small, sacred moments of each day: The most noble emotion is love, of course. But where there is love, there is pain, and nowhere is this more evident than in Object of Desire by Carol Lynn Grellas. As stylish and sophisticated as the beauty who adorns the cover, this collection presents with warmth and grace each sacred moment of being alive—the blessings, the losses, the haunting image of an opportunistic fly loitering on the slack jaw of your beloved pet. Woven throughout is the story of a woman grieving for her mother; spending the first New Year's eve without her, waiting for an epiphany / or message sent by an archangel / telling us she's arrived at her destination. For me, the most powerful poem is “An Unexpected Toast,” which I have yet to read without choking back tears:
For the women who came before me To— To— To— The fourth time I read this poem it was to my mother, and I know we were both thinking of the other emotion that goes with love—gratitude. Mine is profound, and I thank Carol Lynn for the reminder. To purchase a copy of Object of Desire, please go to Amazon.com. As incredible as it seems, I didn't even know what a chapbook was when I first started this magazine. Then one of my favorite poets and our first Writer In the Spotlight Steve Meador sent me a copy of Pack Your Bags. I was so enchanted by the format and his presentation that a few months later I started a chapbook publishing company. From extreme poverty and a first theft to throwing a cat off the roof to see if it would really land on its feet (it did!) Meador brings us on a sweetly-nostalgic trip back to 1950s America. But growing up wasn't always carefree, and Meador also tells tales of whippings from a drunken father and the devastating effects of Agent Orange. Masterfully depicting high drama as seen through young but wise eyes, he succeeds in reminding us of our own childhood days, where the sight of a menstrual pad evoked a blend of curiosity and horror, and a miracle could be found as close by as next door: ~ "Meeting Daniel Boone" Pack Your Bags, and Meador's other chapbook, A Good Sharp Knife, were released by Pudding House in 2007. His first full-length book, Throwing Percy from the Cherry Tree, was entered by the publisher, D-N Publishing, for a 2009 National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. All can be purchased at hangingmossjournal.com.
by Seth Michelson
Press 53, 2012
likes to screw with her boot on.
Another is so lonely he weeps
while he masturbates. A third,
our most peculiar, found his wife
at a church social, fell
lustily for her egg salad
the way you or I might crave cleavage.
“The Tempest”
by Ian C. Smith
Ginninderra Press, 2011
He thinks of describing to the pilot
the world within a world in his mind
but his buckled self is used to silence.
~ “His Silent Summer”
by Jenny Rossi
Deadly Chaps Press, 2011
too often the shadows of men
never the men themselves.
~ "What they say: You should go out more"
by Nina Bannett
Finishing Line Press, 2011
a woman artist and her daughter,
a madwoman and a four-year old.
~ “Rachel St. Michael”
my mother and I are flanked on all sides.
This waiting is a serious business,
these trenches,
this series of stiff chairs and couches
have been placed here by our enemies,
our dentist and his secretary.
Suspended in space,
I am waiting for time to begin and end.
Outside, as we prepare to surrender,
the red brick houses
stand at attention.
What are they thinking?
Right and left: my police car, her ambulance.
Undefeated, my mother screams my name many times.
She will not be vanquished in her psychosis—
convinced that the hospital would be the best place for me, too.
Shattered, I sit in the front seat,
squashed into the squad car radio,
huddled against what I have witnessed.
~ “War Story”
~ Four Lanes
Mark Neely's poems have appeared in Boulevard, Indiana Review, Barrow Street, Southeast Review
and Salt Hill. He teaches at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where he lives with his wife,
writer Jill Christman and their two children.
Poems by Adam Hughes
NYQ Books
like nest-guarding gulls;
tomorrow we'll break through
the Pillars of Hercules.
~ “Here There Be Dragons”
after one. Its coyote-call
whistle conjured up vagrants
and sojourners riding
in empty boxcars, cattle-catchers
on the front of locomotives,
and the commemorative caboose
in Sugar Grove—a museum
that no one visits.
But upon hearing the nocturnal
call of freight in transit
I'm left with the feeling that deep
thoughts about locomotives do not
make me an engineer.
~ “Upon Hearing a Train”
by Laura Rodley
Finishing Line Press, 2010
of the dried sand-dollar, three years
after it is plucked from the bed of the ocean.
~ “Miracles”
my husband had written my initials and his inside a heart
gives me hope, even if later in the day the sun evaporates our
initials, not like cutting them into a tree
but that they were there before he left all day
when I would not see him, that gives me hope.
by Millicent Borges Accardi
Finishing Line Press, 2010
In the flatland dregs, the fat-coated
soldiers knocked at the door, so a woman
was forced, with a gritty smile,
to invite them in, to sit by her
yellow fire, to swallow up her walls.
~ “Only More So”
and cry when Mary goes blind.
They get laid off from the oil company
and go back to art school.
They let their wife work in a bank and stay
home playing Scrabble and pretending to
write grants for Planned Parenthood.
They are married for 18 years,
then take up with an old high school sweetheart
they found on the internet who stalks them.
~ “This is What People Do”
by Anne Whitehouse
2010, Finishing Line Press
gnaws the beetle.
The bright orange pest
consumes the flower
in a few minutes
and moves on.
~ “Elegy for William”
by Anne Whitehouse
2009, Poetic Matrix Press
my heart at front and center,
thoughts dissolved,
thoughts dissolved,
softening, deepening
into the interval
where a goddess passes by.
~ “Blessing XXXV”
where the Buddhist monks were making a Mandala
by pouring colored sands from little bottles
to form intricate patterns. They worked their designs
on a tray on a table in the middle of the room,
while viewers watched and cameras recorded their moves.
Three men with shaved heads in saffron robes:
one was older, and two were young. As soon
as I entered,I felt their peace and wanted to stay.
One of the younger monks explained
how the museum had invited them to New York
from their monastic exile in norther India.
They carried the images they made in their heads.
The Mandala would take two months to finish.
“And then?” I asked. He smiled, and his gold tooth
winked at me. “We will take the Mandala
to the Hudson River and offer it to the water.
The museum wants to preserve it.
They will use sprays to fix the sands,
but they won't work. It will be given back;
for cycle must continue.”
It seemed tragic to me, but not to him.
His inner equilibrium wasn't disturbed.
It mattered not to him that nothing lasted
and I counted it a blessing and a curse.
~ A Blessing and a Curse
by Renee Podunovich
Art Juice Press (2008)
holds what is precious,
impossibly huge, I drink it
with a straw.
Where it Begins”
a blanket of snow, uninterrupted
but for standing dead stalks,
skeletons of what lived, exuberant, in summer,
turned crimson, then gold,
now brown, dry and empty.
They will become the red clay soil
from which to grow again,
will become invisible underground hands
welcoming the deconstructed self.
~ “The Transparent Hands of Winter”
Leash on him.
Pulling harder
when he strayed.
They walked through
The park
With the same, clipped
Brisk gait,
Their eyes squarely
On the well-worn path.
Coming home
To the tasteful,
Well-appointed living room—
And he knew his place,
Scurrying to his usual corner.
She knew then
That they would be
Ready to marry
Soon.
~ “Training Her Pet”
by Ed Miller
Published by Cervená Barva Press
like you could in the old days
and you can't rub out the past
like a butt in an ashtray.
~ “Appraisal”
Did you bring your list? You need your list.
This is the Shopping Mall of the World.
All sales are final. We prosecute shoplifters.
Ask a Sales Associate for details. We thank you
For your patronage. Our friendly staff is here to serve you.
Truckers welcome. Buses welcome. Everybody's welcome.
If for any reason you are dissatisfied with our service,
Please ask to see a Sales Associate. As the Sales Associate
To explain our easy payment plan. Ask the Sales Associate
To describe the Seven Heavenly Manifestations of the Eternal Godhead.
Ask the Sales Associate to unriddle the coefficient of pi.
Ask the Sales Associate to make you some cookies.
~ “The Whole Enchilada”
by Ryan Flaherty
Published by Bateau Press
It is sandstone, alluvial, the taste of old machinery,
a toddler falling into either an ocean or his mother.
The last thing anyone wants is one more new spun story.
"The chicken coop started out as a playpen for the children,
but they all died, moved away, became unforgivably literal.
They didn't plant one garden or invent one new engine."
The likeness that holds the sandstone together is lacing
into me. Accidents are falling apart in my mouth.
~ Excerpt from Nova 1
by Allan Peterson
Published by Bateau Press
was stone hardening, hearing nothing but the artificial
stasis we take for undersanding, the perfect rose
unopened, silver untarnished, an entire room
or ocean reappearing in water drops
Stand back far enough and we are cratered like the moon
pocked as if saucers had been dropped
But the planet had softened the outlines with ferns
and holly and wild allamanda, mosses and they sank
among them as silent as G in sovereign
~ How the Craters Disappeared
by Sandy Green
Published by Flutter Press
behind me
and I didn't notice
that my best friend had moved out of town
and my husband went along for the ride.”
~ What Happens to Busy People
the poet gets to hold hands with two girls
and neither one seems to mind the other,
so he doesn't think you would either—
He wanders around as if he's in a dream
because most of the time
he is
and when he's awake
his eyes are half-opened
or half-closed
depending on your point of view;
He'll stand and support you
when he's not busy showing off
and look at you with bedroom eyes,
but that might mean he's about to fall asleep
again;
At the end of the day—
or the ballet,
he still has two girls draped on his shoulders.
How nice for him,
but is that what you really want?
~ “Why He Wants to be the Poet from Les Sylphides in Your Life”
by Laura Rodley
Published by Finishing Line Press
love compartment,
just your breath upon mine,
your eyes resting on my hair.”
~ Iridescent
water, the circle of our lives.
I hold to your lips
the answer to your prayer:
Drink this, if you can,
swallow this, if you can.
I lift to your lips
a milkshake.
I lift to your lips
the straw you suck to finish the glass.
I do not know
if in five minutes you
will bring all this up
out of your body.
I do not know if right now
you will choke
and I will have to watch
your life leave in blueness
if you cannot catch your breath;
you are on DNR orders,
I could not breathe my life
into your lips to save you.
I could only call an ambulance,
hold you while you shudder,
your lungs filling with
your body's waves.”
~ Caregiver
by Jane Rosenberg LaForge
Published by Burning Rive
“No generation can know itself
if its greatness is too soon
detected.”
~ Highway 5 Stockyard
I want to die, not to be famous or even dead, but for the view,
to see the salt and claw of the shore below,
the mucus and terror I know live in your lungs,
to fling them into the watter. There is no other way
to measure you beside the sinuous line, to re-trace
your footprints that dissolved in the muddy luster.
A legend will last only as long as the film stock,
or perhaps only as long as the Library of Congress.”
~ From the Palisades
Natural Instincts (2008)
by Emily Scudder
Finishing Line Press,
Publishers
If you leave a soda can on the lawn
bees begin to hover. They know to come.
Ants lift a blue chip.
A hamster eats her gummy stillborn, more
protein than progeny now.
Like the tree knows when to fork itself.
Nature rivets. Screws me into dramas
in the kitchen, past the yard.
Behind the house a black snake tried
to swallow a brown frog. It gave up.
Slithered to the brush.
Gleaming in snake spit, the huge frog
sat, stunned in the sun.
10 whales washed up.
8 bottle-nosed dolphins too.
Volunteers came quickly. They found
some alive & picked at. The gulls did it.
On stretchers, the dolphins clicked & clicked.
~ "Natural Instincts"
with a tipple of champagne I'll click
my glass against the crystal sky...
To—
My Mother-in-law
Who in the middle of her stroke
grinned while she snuck a couple of grapes
off the coffee table, then sprawled
along the celadon sofa like Cleopatra
without the Egyptian gown.
My Grandmother
Who danced The Hukilau after returning
from a cruise to the Hawaiian islands,
wrapped in her flame retardant grass skirt
barely moving her hips in a figure eight
due to severe arthritis.
My Aunt Ida
Who died from barren nest syndrome
after a lifetime deprived of being
with child, yet gave us everything
imaginable till her heart exploded,
from holding too much love.
My Mother
Who had the grace of a saint
yet depleted of hope
through her miserable illness.
Who while her body was ravaged
by an insufferable disease, mustered
enough strength to write in chicken scratch:
This is a wonderful day.
I was so out of breath
that I was bent over gasping.
Barely had the strength to pound on the window,
in the Savannah heat,
but this was The Miracle,
The Sighting,
The Resurrection,
and somebody else had to know.
"Teddy, you have to come out. Teddy!"
Eyes and ears appeared beyond the screen.
"It's Daniel Boone. Honest to God.
Get the needle and punch out my eyes!
It's the truth."
The screen door slammed,
almost before my last raspy sentence flashed out.
We ran, Teddy in underwear and both barefooted,
over the burrs, stickers, acorns and ants,
to the edge of our lot.
He was still there.
Buckskin jacket, coonskin cap, rifle cradled through his arm
and us with chin scraping in the red clay.
"I'm Daniel Boone," he said for the second time that morning.
He really was.
He bought the lot, chopped the trees and built a house
from fiberglass panels,
the rippled kind that you put over a patio.
He killed snakes, hunted and cooked "various critters,"
and shot vaseline-coated batteries from a pipe with a
cherry bomb.
Didn't matter if he hadn't wrestled a bear,
or fought with Indians,
or lead a pack of pioneers through the neighborhood,
we still lived next door to a man named Daniel Boone.
