by Laura Behr
Maybe I’m waiting for nothing.
Maybe I’m unearthing instructions
to keep the sky from falling.
Maybe I’m just supposed to sleep here.
Maybe someone will wake me with a squirt gun.
Maybe the highest good, is always a parting guest,
just out of reach.
Maybe the edge of the wind diverts logic,
unveiling limitations.
Maybe limitations could be anything,
the best of days gone by, time punching a clock.
Maybe you’ll let me put our stories in a box.
Maybe I’ll let something good be said for you.
Maybe I’ll take you home and kiss your life-lessons.
Maybe you’ll soon forget lost loves and worn out Sappho.
Maybe at the appointed hour, just before dawn, the last night of August,
a race of lonely giants will arrive, like dark energy outlaws
becoming one nation, saving morning, pulling it through a tunnel of light.
Friday, May 10, 2013
bombs go off everywhere. i am tired
by Amy Soricelli
everyone is tired.
sleeping head on their arms on their desk their papers
their papers are a pillow.
they tell me this - they say 'i am so tired'.
we carry hate like bricks in a lunch box the apple from 4th grade move over
there is death now - a little chocolate chip cookie of death -
it is easier to spin this on a sunny day but i am too sleepy to think.
three people in the morning said "i am so tired i could nap - i could nap right here
in this spot".
the arrow "you are here".
i would be there snoring away
soundlessly snoring we are all so tired of sorrow.
exhausts us all.
it is tiring to fall down and not get up.
everyone is tired.
everyone is tired.
sleeping head on their arms on their desk their papers
their papers are a pillow.
they tell me this - they say 'i am so tired'.
we carry hate like bricks in a lunch box the apple from 4th grade move over
there is death now - a little chocolate chip cookie of death -
it is easier to spin this on a sunny day but i am too sleepy to think.
three people in the morning said "i am so tired i could nap - i could nap right here
in this spot".
the arrow "you are here".
i would be there snoring away
soundlessly snoring we are all so tired of sorrow.
exhausts us all.
it is tiring to fall down and not get up.
everyone is tired.
Goethe’s Clock
by Brian Wake
Goethe’s clock is ticking in an empty room.
He sits quite motionless. All art, then peels
a curling strip of wallpaper from a dilapidated
wall, begins, he says, from what we know
and seeks connections everywhere. All poetry
gives probability to our disjointed world.
Goethe winds his clock each afternoon
at twenty five to four. I wind the present on,
he says, the shipwrecked man ashore. I will assert
my part in what, until a moment such as this,
has been concealed. I wind a dawn of flickering
light bulbs into something more meticulous.
Goethe winds his clock against the floodgate
swelling with the pressing weight of all he knows
but fears will forget, the force of instinct, reason
and the privilege of art, the walls of books.
I wind, he says, the unexpected footprints
in the newly fallen snow. I wind the barricades
set up against the odds of never growing old.
I wind the passive consciousness of such
impossibilities. I wind, he says, and pours
a quantity of wine into an empty glass,
the sum of almost everything I ever knew
into a time that, for the life of me, I hope
might never pass.
Goethe’s clock is ticking in an empty room.
He sits quite motionless. All art, then peels
a curling strip of wallpaper from a dilapidated
wall, begins, he says, from what we know
and seeks connections everywhere. All poetry
gives probability to our disjointed world.
Goethe winds his clock each afternoon
at twenty five to four. I wind the present on,
he says, the shipwrecked man ashore. I will assert
my part in what, until a moment such as this,
has been concealed. I wind a dawn of flickering
light bulbs into something more meticulous.
Goethe winds his clock against the floodgate
swelling with the pressing weight of all he knows
but fears will forget, the force of instinct, reason
and the privilege of art, the walls of books.
I wind, he says, the unexpected footprints
in the newly fallen snow. I wind the barricades
set up against the odds of never growing old.
I wind the passive consciousness of such
impossibilities. I wind, he says, and pours
a quantity of wine into an empty glass,
the sum of almost everything I ever knew
into a time that, for the life of me, I hope
might never pass.
Magnolias
by Lauren Tivey
Budding in early April,
the bare-branched trees
are candelabras, their tips
flames of white, purple,
mauve, the rare yellow.
We are allowed to gush
over them, the event
of their opening cups,
their unfolding into
party gowns, as Étienne,
toiling in his arboretum
for the Empress Josephine,
must have wept with joy
over his hybrids, over
each individual angel.
Tonight, the maiden moon,
intoxicating scent; I am
thinking of you, how seductive
and perilous the metaphor.
But it is spring, a time
of indulgence, and we are far
from France, under exotic skies,
flowers trumpeting their magic:
I cannot stop looking at them.
I cannot stop thinking of you.
Budding in early April,
the bare-branched trees
are candelabras, their tips
flames of white, purple,
mauve, the rare yellow.
We are allowed to gush
over them, the event
of their opening cups,
their unfolding into
party gowns, as Étienne,
toiling in his arboretum
for the Empress Josephine,
must have wept with joy
over his hybrids, over
each individual angel.
Tonight, the maiden moon,
intoxicating scent; I am
thinking of you, how seductive
and perilous the metaphor.
But it is spring, a time
of indulgence, and we are far
from France, under exotic skies,
flowers trumpeting their magic:
I cannot stop looking at them.
I cannot stop thinking of you.
Old City
by Stephen Jarrell Williams
Too many walls,
baloney smell
damp.
Our minds infiltrated,
radiated
with bogus facts.
Confusion
slicing us
into stumps.
Fruit
bloodied,
roots dangling...
We're mashed
potatoes
heaped on their golden plates.
They're laughing
at us
spooning us down.
Closing us in
cardboard boxes
against the elements.
But when our babies weep,
we sprout thorns
engorged.
Our old city shaking,
a thousand cities quaking,
dust rising to the sky.
Stones coming their way.
Too many walls,
baloney smell
damp.
Our minds infiltrated,
radiated
with bogus facts.
Confusion
slicing us
into stumps.
Fruit
bloodied,
roots dangling...
We're mashed
potatoes
heaped on their golden plates.
They're laughing
at us
spooning us down.
Closing us in
cardboard boxes
against the elements.
But when our babies weep,
we sprout thorns
engorged.
Our old city shaking,
a thousand cities quaking,
dust rising to the sky.
Stones coming their way.
Stalking Horses
by Jeremy Marks
I send out at night
my stalking horses
They report to me
at dawn
behind the firewood shed.
My children feel that I turn
into a four-legged, centaur-like man
while they are sleeping
That my eyes are seated behind
a pair of large globes
catching the sinuous, roving robe
of equine landscapes
But they do not-
The horses are their own;
they stalk for themselves
through many a darkness
I know not
And they are not mine-
we merely share this patch of Earth
I bought off a man
-as I bought them
And all of us were then turned loose
upon ourselves.
I send out at night
my stalking horses
They report to me
at dawn
behind the firewood shed.
My children feel that I turn
into a four-legged, centaur-like man
while they are sleeping
That my eyes are seated behind
a pair of large globes
catching the sinuous, roving robe
of equine landscapes
But they do not-
The horses are their own;
they stalk for themselves
through many a darkness
I know not
And they are not mine-
we merely share this patch of Earth
I bought off a man
-as I bought them
And all of us were then turned loose
upon ourselves.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Fantasy Island Redux: “De pipeline, boss, de pipeline!”
by Maureen Kingston
a hot load, a hot shot
through the weakest vein
the great plains
where seldom is heard
a discouraging word
where dissent is drowned out
by the global cash machine
he maketh me to lie down
in green pastures
the pipeline’s well-designed,
the engineers assure
a mighty fortress is our god,
a bulwark never failing
the promise of jobs & safety,
a universal hope or a uniscam?
The Good Life, Nebraska’s motto,
her citizens gracious to the end,
pouring pitcher after pitcher of tar sands
a hot load, a hot shot
through the weakest vein
the great plains
where seldom is heard
a discouraging word
where dissent is drowned out
by the global cash machine
he maketh me to lie down
in green pastures
the pipeline’s well-designed,
the engineers assure
a mighty fortress is our god,
a bulwark never failing
the promise of jobs & safety,
a universal hope or a uniscam?
The Good Life, Nebraska’s motto,
her citizens gracious to the end,
pouring pitcher after pitcher of tar sands
When The Gun Goes Off It Always Surprises You
by Anastasia Placido
Enamored
Not like jade enamel:
Glazed and polished
Amore, love
Lots more than shine
And charmed
Like a snake in a basket
Weaving
Woozy
Spellbound
Cast over like a darkened sky
And awash in air
Insulated, head to chest
A murmuring of the heart
Crack the ribcage
Open up the breast
And let the light beam echo
Unarmored
Enamored
Not like jade enamel:
Glazed and polished
Amore, love
Lots more than shine
And charmed
Like a snake in a basket
Weaving
Woozy
Spellbound
Cast over like a darkened sky
And awash in air
Insulated, head to chest
A murmuring of the heart
Crack the ribcage
Open up the breast
And let the light beam echo
Unarmored
Why Daniel Gave Up Painting And Took Up The Blues
by Joe Farley
When the dandelion wine,
farm fermented, ran out
you turned to whiskey,
and married yourself to a bottle,
adapted the drinking man's diet
and shed forty pounds
and with it all thoughts
of the lover who left you
for a woman and not a man.
You still saw her naked
when another model posed
for your brushes to dance
colors across a canvas.
The shapes came out
broken and tormented,
so you left the studio
and bought a slide guitar
and learned to paint music,
with blue the only pigment
left on your palette.
When the dandelion wine,
farm fermented, ran out
you turned to whiskey,
and married yourself to a bottle,
adapted the drinking man's diet
and shed forty pounds
and with it all thoughts
of the lover who left you
for a woman and not a man.
You still saw her naked
when another model posed
for your brushes to dance
colors across a canvas.
The shapes came out
broken and tormented,
so you left the studio
and bought a slide guitar
and learned to paint music,
with blue the only pigment
left on your palette.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Campo de’ Fiori
by Bryan Murphy
Filippo was in pretty good shape, until they burnt him.
Of course, seven years of imprisonment had taken a toll – his leg muscles had atrophied and his eyes would water in sunlight – but for a man past fifty, well, he looked as though he’d be around for years to come. And that voice: loud and level, a debater’s voice. Not to mention the man’s mind, sharp and lucid as his tongue. Ah, his tongue. The weakest part of his whole body, the only part he couldn’t control. Even that was healthy enough when I examined it. They brought the friar to us, to our hospital on the island in the river. Wanted to be sure he’d survive until the end of his holy inquisition. Some of his holy inquisitors looked more likely to snuff it than he did. Tortured consciences. Brought him here regularly over the years. Always me who examined him, until – Holy Father!
Yes, we talked. Mostly he talked and I listened. No, I didn’t absorb any of his heretical ideas, all that rubbish about life on other worlds. He did teach me some of his memory tricks. No, it’s not witchcraft. Believe me, I’ve seen a few witches in my time. Tell you one thing, I’ll never be able to forget him. Never forget a word he said. And he says plenty. Dominican, he is. Was. Intellectuals. Not like us plain John-of-God people. We just tend to the sick. It’s true we learn anatomy and cures, but mostly we just talk and listen to our charges. And pray for them.
So, memory and anatomy and obedience. I’ll get by with them in the secular world. Saecula saeculorum. What a world. Sixteen hundred years after Our Lord came to it. And left it. Poor, forsaken Filippo Bruno: our Brother Giordano.
Filippo was in pretty good shape, until they burnt him.
Of course, seven years of imprisonment had taken a toll – his leg muscles had atrophied and his eyes would water in sunlight – but for a man past fifty, well, he looked as though he’d be around for years to come. And that voice: loud and level, a debater’s voice. Not to mention the man’s mind, sharp and lucid as his tongue. Ah, his tongue. The weakest part of his whole body, the only part he couldn’t control. Even that was healthy enough when I examined it. They brought the friar to us, to our hospital on the island in the river. Wanted to be sure he’d survive until the end of his holy inquisition. Some of his holy inquisitors looked more likely to snuff it than he did. Tortured consciences. Brought him here regularly over the years. Always me who examined him, until – Holy Father!
Yes, we talked. Mostly he talked and I listened. No, I didn’t absorb any of his heretical ideas, all that rubbish about life on other worlds. He did teach me some of his memory tricks. No, it’s not witchcraft. Believe me, I’ve seen a few witches in my time. Tell you one thing, I’ll never be able to forget him. Never forget a word he said. And he says plenty. Dominican, he is. Was. Intellectuals. Not like us plain John-of-God people. We just tend to the sick. It’s true we learn anatomy and cures, but mostly we just talk and listen to our charges. And pray for them.
So, memory and anatomy and obedience. I’ll get by with them in the secular world. Saecula saeculorum. What a world. Sixteen hundred years after Our Lord came to it. And left it. Poor, forsaken Filippo Bruno: our Brother Giordano.
Naked
by Susie Sweetland Garay
Surely, she thinks, they will
believe that a woman
with nothing on
has nothing to hide.
That she is harmless.
But they only seem to find her
more sinister for her
nakedness.
Surely, she thinks, they will
believe that a woman
with nothing on
has nothing to hide.
That she is harmless.
But they only seem to find her
more sinister for her
nakedness.
Snow Falls in Kansas City
by Al Ortolani
You are sleeping when
the first flakes fall, not rising
until the paperboy swings by
in his squeaking Durango.
You have coffee in the morning,
reading yesterday’s news, drinking in
predictions of more snow.
In the afternoon you wade out
into the gray light. A calmness
descends, drifting
in swooping bales between
shut doors. Your peace, punctuated
only by crows, begins
in the belly, extends even to 87th Street
where a single taxi churns
to the edge of town.
You are sleeping when
the first flakes fall, not rising
until the paperboy swings by
in his squeaking Durango.
You have coffee in the morning,
reading yesterday’s news, drinking in
predictions of more snow.
In the afternoon you wade out
into the gray light. A calmness
descends, drifting
in swooping bales between
shut doors. Your peace, punctuated
only by crows, begins
in the belly, extends even to 87th Street
where a single taxi churns
to the edge of town.
The Visitor
by Laura Grodin
I call you the phoenix lights,
but they only see blues and reds
reflecting on crumbled soil. Nothing above but miles
of hollow air. You hover without touch,
the buzz of air pushed beneath you, floating
above a sand dune you’ve never known.
There’s something odd when I look up,
I can’t finish my cereal, the bowl in my hands
is unlike grey plates circling. Vibrations in
my slippers on the wet grass, a button undone
on my flannels, near my neck so I can open wide.
You’re coming down soon.
Flying in V’s like birds of another species,
There is a notable emptiness between earth and soil.
Tufts of air brush my cheeks, hair static.
Stricken from memory you’ll land, nestled
on moonlit craters, cracked from the constant
beating of breath.
I call you the phoenix lights,
but they only see blues and reds
reflecting on crumbled soil. Nothing above but miles
of hollow air. You hover without touch,
the buzz of air pushed beneath you, floating
above a sand dune you’ve never known.
There’s something odd when I look up,
I can’t finish my cereal, the bowl in my hands
is unlike grey plates circling. Vibrations in
my slippers on the wet grass, a button undone
on my flannels, near my neck so I can open wide.
You’re coming down soon.
Flying in V’s like birds of another species,
There is a notable emptiness between earth and soil.
Tufts of air brush my cheeks, hair static.
Stricken from memory you’ll land, nestled
on moonlit craters, cracked from the constant
beating of breath.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Half Day in Moon-Tone Room
by Jacqueline Markowski
We lie together never really
knowing who's there between,
or within, or even why, but there,
in that room, moments break open
into tiny little spasms of liquid—
tears and sweat— viperous guilt.
The moment we reach the place we can't
define we are sudden. The sounds of the birds
screech in and out of the lost stillness
we've created— here? Where
we are least passive, least sedentary,
of all places to make one
quiet consciousness of two
racing alligators.
As the awkwardness breaths heavily
upward in the smoky room, white
walls darken like wood paneling,
pupils dilate, become round moons
absorbing each other's shine,
each other's light—
and then they are one
Vermont moon.
Gravity rakes fiercely with its waves, the feelings
that shook my nerves, offering up
to the beach (with its reject
sand castles and moldy, forgotten
beach bags) all losses of
conscientious objection,
paradoxical notions
incased in glowing antique renditions
of nature verses nurture.
Our moon rang out a silent truth,
spilling dialectics
of truth in/honesty of
emotion; a wave of premonitory
nostalgia swept us both
under the rugged, hateful tide.
I could feel it, like salt water slapping
at my ten year old back (sun-kissed,
damaged; but young skin heals nicely)
pulling at my torso
just at the moment
you hugged onto me quietly,
the man in the moon is
thinking about it, too,
you told me.
What you didn't say,
what I didn't think
ahead to was that,
inevitably, this violent, sibilant tide
will turn its sights to the next light
house, our nautical parable
interpolated amid
the skeletons and the other
forgotten jewels.
We lie together never really
knowing who's there between,
or within, or even why, but there,
in that room, moments break open
into tiny little spasms of liquid—
tears and sweat— viperous guilt.
The moment we reach the place we can't
define we are sudden. The sounds of the birds
screech in and out of the lost stillness
we've created— here? Where
we are least passive, least sedentary,
of all places to make one
quiet consciousness of two
racing alligators.
As the awkwardness breaths heavily
upward in the smoky room, white
walls darken like wood paneling,
pupils dilate, become round moons
absorbing each other's shine,
each other's light—
and then they are one
Vermont moon.
Gravity rakes fiercely with its waves, the feelings
that shook my nerves, offering up
to the beach (with its reject
sand castles and moldy, forgotten
beach bags) all losses of
conscientious objection,
paradoxical notions
incased in glowing antique renditions
of nature verses nurture.
Our moon rang out a silent truth,
spilling dialectics
of truth in/honesty of
emotion; a wave of premonitory
nostalgia swept us both
under the rugged, hateful tide.
I could feel it, like salt water slapping
at my ten year old back (sun-kissed,
damaged; but young skin heals nicely)
pulling at my torso
just at the moment
you hugged onto me quietly,
the man in the moon is
thinking about it, too,
you told me.
What you didn't say,
what I didn't think
ahead to was that,
inevitably, this violent, sibilant tide
will turn its sights to the next light
house, our nautical parable
interpolated amid
the skeletons and the other
forgotten jewels.
Night Town Eden
by David Mac
Black windows
Black heart
Black soul to look through
The masterpiece has changed
The painting’s not the same
Town night air swirls
Don’t know no better
Drives you crazy
Bleeding ghosts of girls
Lips like cigarettes
Smiles like stars
Rats betray the dream
We’ll never change
We’ll never get over a thing
The love of snakes
The fear of apples
We’re a force to be reckoned with
We do not stand a chance
Black windows
Black heart
Black soul to look through
The masterpiece has changed
The painting’s not the same
Town night air swirls
Don’t know no better
Drives you crazy
Bleeding ghosts of girls
Lips like cigarettes
Smiles like stars
Rats betray the dream
We’ll never change
We’ll never get over a thing
The love of snakes
The fear of apples
We’re a force to be reckoned with
We do not stand a chance
the naked soul
by Moriah LaChapell
is a collection
of polished stones
gathered
from roadside ditches
slack rivers
and corridor forests
these stones become
encased in our viscera
until we someday decay
and some body else
finds them
again
is a collection
of polished stones
gathered
from roadside ditches
slack rivers
and corridor forests
these stones become
encased in our viscera
until we someday decay
and some body else
finds them
again
Working Five-Tens at the Plant I Heard Safety Man’s Story
by Jason Braun
Juarez bound, one night he disappeared
for a week. He emerged like a baby
might, in his underwear. His skin
shrunken and raw in the outline
of the jailhouse doorframe. His wife
bailed him out and must have know
he spent a wallet full, before selling
first his boots, then his hat, shirt
and finally the Levi’s for something
to drink and sex. They hadn’t gave
him water yet that day and his wife
didn’t stop driving until the car
was parked in their Odessa garage.
On a hot day, I think of him and drink.
Juarez bound, one night he disappeared
for a week. He emerged like a baby
might, in his underwear. His skin
shrunken and raw in the outline
of the jailhouse doorframe. His wife
bailed him out and must have know
he spent a wallet full, before selling
first his boots, then his hat, shirt
and finally the Levi’s for something
to drink and sex. They hadn’t gave
him water yet that day and his wife
didn’t stop driving until the car
was parked in their Odessa garage.
On a hot day, I think of him and drink.
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