2019

 

 

APRIL CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

Lin Nelson Benedek, Mark Blayney, M. J. Iuppa, Alison Jones, Gary Kurtz,

Emma Lee, Todd Mercer, Maren O. Mitchell, Maggie Reed, Kevin Ridgeway,

 Anthony Watts, Rodney Wood.

 

 

 

 

 

LIN NELSON BENEDEK

 

Architecture: (a) as History (b) as Aphrodisiac

 

I

 

I interview the old man, my father-in-law, about his first eighty years

   

and on a napkin, he draws a map of his childhood home,

built around a courtyard in Orashaza, Hungary,

 

where his father owned the town textile store, called,

in translation, Young Married Woman of Szeged.

         

He says the black décor makes the restaurant un peu funèbre. A bit funereal.

 

II

       

          Generations come. Generations go.

 

          His father, his father’s father, my father, my father’s father, all the fathers.

 

          And all the mothers of all the mothers stayed home.

 

 

We sit under the clock in the Beaux Arts station home of the Musée d’Orsay and visit his old building on Rue des Grands Augustins.

 

Paris. Home to High Gothic, Flamboyant, Belle Epoque,

Art Nouveau; majesty, ornament and plenty.

 

III

 

At the hotel my husband and I go back to our room. The old man calls it

our little baiser-torium. He approves of love.

 

French doors lead to a balcony framed in ornate ironwork.

 

          The sun is rising to vanquish the night. The river is rising.

 

           Citizens are rising all around the city.

 

           The sun is rising. The bread is rising. The steam is rising.

 

           We are rising to fill the empty space that waits in my body.

 

We look toward the window,

see something shimmer

behind the veil.

 

In a white bedroom in Paris,

hesitation slips through the tiny waist

of an hourglass.

 

Forsaking allegiance to our separate selves, 

we slip into history. We slip into the dream.

 

 

Life Lessons from Art History

 

Chiaroscuro:

Light and shadow will follow you all the days of your lives. Get used to it.

 

Putti:

And I quote: “Little pudgy, rose-cheeked babies, sometimes with wings, shown doing grown-up things like making bread, riding chariots, making wine.” Moral:

Act your age.

 

Vanishing Point:

Are you coming or going? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

 

Perspective:

When you’re not seeing straight and someone tells you to look at it from another angle, as in: Location Location Location.

 

Illuminated Manuscript:

Like a comic book or graphic novel, only grander. I’ll scratch your back

and you scratch mine; i.e., you’ll know it when you see it.

 

Cloissonné:

Channels set in stone—nothing like life itself, which is way more compromised.

 

Sfumato:

Where I might as well be you and you me; where my hair becomes sun becomes water becomes clouds becomes rain becomes rivers becomes oceans and we appear and disappear like angels.

 

Lin Nelson Benedek earned her M.F.A. in Writing at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. She has had poems published in a number of journals and in five anthologies. Her first full-length poetry collection, I Was Going to Be a Cowgirl, was published by Kelsay Books in 2017. Her second poetry collection, When a Peacock Speaks to You in a Dream, was released in 2018 by the same publisher.

 

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 MARK BLAYNEY

 

Petra

 

I took sand to line

the floor of our wedding.

 

Our grandchildren

are seen in the cracks        

 

between buildings. Rose dorms 

pile one on another,

 

honeycombed. On our way back 

through the corridor of the siq

 

Indiana-like, stealing the sand,

we read myths in the stone.

 

It’s like coming into land.

Lives are buried in the mountains

 

because the mountains give life.

This alchemy of taking indifferent

 

dust and making it incandescent

is clear as glass.

 

We married in February, its mist laying a glove

that reminded me of my gran.

 

Would she have liked me, you ask.

On the east of the river we live

 

and seeing the west, remember

those who unconsciously placed us here.

 

We’re told as we race the horses back to the entrance

of speculators who came to find

 

what might be hidden in the Treasury.

Their rifle pockmarks still line the doorway.

 

There is, it’s reluctantly agreed, no treasure.

It’s only as the wedding music

 

clears its throat and footprints

breathe freely from their parents

 

that our spread of sand reveals

gold. Sometimes

 

myths become myths because

they’re real, just not what we think we see.

 

Until we heat the sand

and keep going.  

 

Mark Blayney won the Somerset Maugham Award for Two kinds of silence. His third story collection Doppelgangers and poetry Loud music makes you drive faster are published by Parthian. Mark has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, is a Hay Festival Writer at Work and has won a Wales Media Award for his journalism. www.markblayney.weebly.com     @markblayney 

 

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M.J. IUPPA

 

Garden’s End

 

Tomatoes lie flat on hard-packed dirt, persisting beyond reason.

Risky splits & small bruises don’t deter a scavenger’s dream

 

of savoring slow-roasted tomatoes drizzled in oil & served

on sourdough slices . . .

 

                         Now noon’s heat wicks away dew

while insect eyes follow me into the garden’s recess of leaf

 

& rot. It’s hard to say what a grasshopper wants when it flits

its way into my basket.

 

                          Some would wait to see if the beat of

its body would spin into another orbit– only to settle, still as

 

stone among this garden’s ageless ruin . . .

 

M.J. Iuppa ‘s fourth poetry collection is This Thirst (Kelsay Books, 2017).For the past 30 years, she has lived on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Check out her blog: mjiuppa.blogspot.com for her musings on writing, sustainability & life’s stew.

 

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ALISON JONES

 

Lumbricidae

She stands at the corner of a plot.
Coins of autumn sun dance over her body.
The worms are waiting. Centuries of soil
digested in single moments.

Old stories, cast by nightcrawlers. Lengthening.
Contracting. Forcing in air, underground pistons.
Pushing things on, fragmenting debris.
Physical grinding. Chemical digestion.
Underground magic.

The woman does not believe in ghosts,
but turns the soil anyway, beneath
a magpie's snickering. Nearby a drunk wasp
buzzes dangerously in a too ripe pear.

Still the worms work. Long cylinders,
completing restoration projects.
Bringing life back to where it once began,
with a slither and a slip.

 

Alison Jones is a teacher, and writer with work published in a variety of places, including Proletarian Poetry,  The Interpreter’s House, The Green Parent Magazine and The Guardian. She has a particular interest in the role of nature in literature and is a champion of contemporary poetry in the secondary school classroom. Her pamphlet, Heartwood was published by Indigo Dreams in 2018, with a second pamphlet. Omega forthcoming in 2019.

 

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CRAIG KURTZ

 

Powdered Wigs

 

No more powdered wigs for me —

they symbolize the monarchy;

alas, those curls of bygone days

invoke elite colifichets.

 

The fam’ly portraits in the hall

with powdered wigs, I’ll burn them all;

I’d rather not the mob suspect

that my head’s too proud for my neck.

 

Sure, once upon a time the ton

wore powdered wigs, sine qua non;

they went out with good silk culottes

which now offend those damned have-nots.

 

To hear it told, those fashions reek

of attitudes bethought antique;

it’s true that what we now abjure

was then considered good couture.

 

Those powdered wigs we once did like

will now get your head on a pike;

and portraits with them offer proof

you should get hauled off by some beauf.

 

And what of the wig-makers since? —

they’re getting jobs as informants;

the painters bethink their portraits

and shake down us sophisticates.

 

It was the culture, don’t forget —

there wasn’t even a Left yet;

the current then was just as strong

as nowadays when then is wrong.

 

Those powdered wigs we now reject —

the guillotine has that effect;

my old beliefs I’ll fain renege

and hope no one recalls my wig.

 

Craig Kurtz is the author of Wortley Clutterbuck’s Practical Guide to Deplorable Personages, illustrated by Anni Wilson. More content at https://kurtzandwilson.blogspot.com.

 

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EMMA LEE

 

You didn't name this storm​

​

It's said when you dream of someone,​

they want to come into your life.​

Overnight, flakes drifted into a sculptable layer ​

for angels or dreams, an offer of possibilities.​

​

A search engine discovers the places you haunted ​

as a teenager have either gone or been refurbished. ​

The name you searched is linked to a postal address. ​

You want a storm that shares your name​

​

to be memorable, but not destructive.​

No social media accounts. With no reason ​

to get in touch, you wish him well and let go. ​

Perhaps it wasn't a dream but some song ​

​

that was the trigger. Easy mistake under ​

a blank erasure of landscape. You wonder​

what he remembers, if anything, of you.​

​

 

Spiced Hot Chocolate​

(17th-century hot chocolate recipe,

used at Dyrham Park stately home (South Gloucestershire, UK)

where guests are offered a taste)​

​

Take one and half tablespoons unsweetened cocoa​

and add the same amount of sugar to dilute the bitterness.​

Take half a teaspoon of cinnamon, appropriate for a gentleman​

to show support for the British East India Company.​

Take an eighth of a teaspoon of cloves from the Spice Islands,​

undermining the Dutch East India Company's attempts at monopoly.​

Take an eighth of a teaspoon of star anise brought from India.​

Take an eighth of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, possibly​

grown in a gentleman's greenhouse, warmed and protected from frost.​

Now the local ingredients, half a cup of milk and half a cup of water.​

Combine and heat slowly. The spices may clear a conscience​

as well as the sinuses. The bitter sweetness is a salve.​

​

Emma Lee’s recent collection is Ghosts in the Desert (IDP, UK 2015). The Significance of a Dress is forthcoming from Arachne (UK). She co-edited Over Land, Over Sea, (Five Leaves, UK, 2015), reviews for The Blue Nib, High Window Journal, The Journal, London Grip, Sabotage Reviews and blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com.​

 

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TODD MERCER
 

Kind of Blue

 

Miles

Davis

trumpet runs

rise up and meet you

where you are. An ambulance nears,

zooms past blaring hope, and will to power, its cargo—

jeopardy, its terminal point—

further on. “So What?”

supersedes

the din.

One

saved.

 

Loganberry

            (for Dorothy)

 

Loganberry wine set to age sometime post-War, the exact year unknown, in a musty root cellar, a Michigan basement. Prior to the Frigidaire era, men cut blocks from the lake, slosh atop partly submerged float ice, wield saws and long pikes.

 

“Steak again?” the dairy-farm girl opines. Denizens of bare bones America eat whatever is on hand; somewhere the child’s alter echo is bemoaning repeat lobster feasts.

 

Blackberry reverie afternoon, farm girl follows meandering thickets, tries to misplace her Dad’s truck, wanders past property lines, honing the perfect pail. The far fields of evergreen seedlings, savings bonds of cellulose, commodity reports on Dad’s transistor clarify the results of this seasons’ greater struggle.

 

Elderberry preserves, one pint, found while cleaning out the house. The middle-age executrix throws them in a Hefty Cinch Sack. She saves the questionable wine, walks untended fallow acres, hearing her mother hailing, seeing her father in stands of trees.

Todd Mercer of Grand Rapids, Michigan was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. His collection of pre-owned Italian ties purchased for $2 each is probably the most bad-ass pre-owned Italian tie collection outside of Italy. Recent work appears in: The Magnolia Review, Praxis and Softblow.

 

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MAREN O. MITCHELL

 

Outcomes

 

The last swallow of green tea in your cup

could be so flat you decide to switch

to Cheerwine for breakfast or it could be

the most inspiring sip, the one that pushes

your latest poem into immortality.

 

At the grocery store, you do not speak

to the interesting-looking stranger who is also

judging the ripeness of the tomatoes by feel,

who could be the serial killer you read about

five years from now in The National Inquirer

or who could have become your best friend.

 

You could have failed in all the areas

you wished you’d studied, never able

to connect them or be smirking at your

reflection in the glass of the framed

Pulitzer certificate awarded to you.

 

The nap not taken may not improve your

night’s sleep, but could have held the dream

in which you viewed kaleidoscopic

prophesies of this and other worlds.

 

The gnat to whom you offer clemency may

give you a bite that infects, festers and

slowly kills you or it may break out in an aria

of exultation, loud enough for you to hear,

and exquisite enough for you to soar on

and recall even up to your last breath.

 

 

Purples

 

Offspring of red and blue,

you were not my favorites when I was young.

 

I preferred aqua and pale green,

except for those large, hard lavender Easter egg candies

 

that could loosen a tooth.

No, not until I was sexually mature did you appeal to me,

 

in the form of melancholy clouds,

matching my discovery of melancholy;

 

in the dark of wild violets,

a reminder of the importance of what was under my feet;

 

in the color of defiance I wore as opposition

to my red hair. Most expensive, least worn by ancient

 

Romans, evidence of wealth and position, you’re

now available and permitted to all, without fear of execution.

 

Evidence of accident, abuse and old age,

you tell the ugly truth of blood as seen through skin.

 

Most powerful visible

wavelength of electromagnetic energy,

 

accept my gratitude for meditation

within the pulsing dimensions of purple flowers,

 

as they relate over and over

the story of life and death, the promise of mystery.

 

 

Maren O. Mitchell’s poems appear in The MacGuffin, The Cortland Review, Hotel Amerika, Poetry East,POEM, The Comstock Review, Tar River Poetry, Town Creek Poetry, The Pedestal Magazine, Appalachian Heritage, Slant, Still: The Journal, Chiron Review, The Lake (UK), The South Carolina Review, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Journal and elsewhere. Work is forthcoming in POEM and Slant: A Journal of Poetry. Two poems were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives with her husband in the mountains of Georgia.

 

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MAGGIE REED

 

Parcel Delivery

 

I learnt how to look good in uniform,

how to reverse using wing mirrors only.

 

I learnt how to ask for help and accept it.

I learnt about the weight of rolls of wallpaper,

 

holiday brochures tied with plastic tape,

how to sling them in the back of the Transit.

 

I learnt how to use the CB radio:

Kendal 45 calling Preston Control. Over.

 

I learnt how to drive in the rain,

crying because I couldn’t see,

 

how to use air brakes (gently),

on the three ton truck,

 

how to watch the moon stay steady on my right,

driving back up the M6.

 

I learnt how to filter on Bridge Street,

how to explain filtering to the man who followed me,

 

complaining that I had cut him up.

I learnt how to walk through the warehouse at Risley,

 

be the only woman,

smile at the right moment.

 

Maggie Reed lives in Malvern, United Kingdom. She graduated with a merit in an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University in 2015. Maggie has been published in The North and Message in a Bottle, as well as numerous anthologies. She came third in Settle Sessions Poetry Competition in 2016. ‘Parcel Delivery’ was first published in The North 56, August 2016.

 

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KEVIN RIDGEWAY

 

Blue Tinted Sunglasses

 

they didn't leave my face for three months

from a cheap rack across the street from

CBGB's on St. Mark's Place

the September sky above quiet

as I prepared for the fall semester

i watched the world trade center fall in a shade of blue

that none of the professors could tell housed

bloodshot eyes from paranoid bong rips

as the war on terror and conspiracy theories began

causing my interest to wane in losing my virginity

to a sweet little Jewish girl from Cincinnati

with her blonde dreadlocks and Tourette's Syndrome

that made her come close to biting off my tongue

whenever we made out, but those blue tinted 

sunglasses were finally destroyed when my

future ex-wife acted like she accidentally

sat on them in order to make my brooding

face a little more handsome. 

 

 

Flash Flood Warning

 

i am walking down pacific coast highway

in a gnarly downpour of endless rain 

with water levels rising to where

the end of the gutter meets 

the beginning of a slippery sidewalk

scarred by cracks from years 

of hard street life hitting its pavement

but not from little old me

with the umbrella that breaks

halfway during my trip 

to the local mental health clinic

when a car full of undergraduate girls

splashes toxic rain water all over me

in a tidal wave of muddy filth

and i run after their car until 

i realize who was guilty of splashing me

a bunch of girls laughing at me 

and mouthing that they were sorry

as they splashed me again 

making a California turn onto

Cherry Avenue on their way

to dry classrooms and younger 

versions of me soaking wet 

from similar incidents on 

the way to school, fellows

who those girls laugh at

and fellows who write poems

about those mean girls

who didn't mean it every time

they said they were sorry to us

when we asked them out on dates

that ended at 6 PM, but I don't 

take shit from girls like that

anymore, and I threw my

umbrella in the direction 

of their moving car and flipped

them off until they screamed

out the back window that I was

just another stupid ass white boy,

but i never gave up screaming

angry gibberish at them while

people looked on from their

cars and wondered if I was

crazy or high, or just plain

fucking tired of being so

goddamned down on my luck

and standing here, all alone

with all eyes on me.  

 

 

Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press).  Recent work has appeared in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, Trailer Park Quarterly, As it Ought to Be, Be About it Zine and The American Journal of Poetry, among others.  He is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry.  A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, he lives and writes in Long Beach, CA. 

 

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ANTHONY WATTS

 

Satisfaction

 

The mowing done, the garden

comes into sharper focus:

 

clean cut flowerbeds     islands

in a calm green sea.

 

The motor’s din now dead, the air

is quieter than before

 

and loaded with the scent of grass.

 

The compost heap has grown

mountainous with cuttings.

 

I trundle the mower into the shed

and shut the door. 

 

The departing sun

touches the tops of the trees

 

with marmalade light.

 

Anthony Watts has been writing ‘seriously’ for over 40 years.  He has won prizes and had poems published in magazines and anthologies. His main interests are poetry, music and walking. His latest collection is The Shell-gatherer: http://www.overstepsbooks.com/cat/the-shell-gatherer/

 

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RODNEY WOOD

 

Pyrophobia

 

I was 15 and knew all the bands, their songs and album covers

so when I was in Boyd's (just down from the Westy) flicking through

their records I wasn't surprised to come across the Chicago Transit Authority

I'd only heard from John Peel on wonderful Radio One playing

 

I’m a Man. 7 mins and 40 seconds of this surging heavy metal version

of the Spencer Davis Group song with passionate vocals, organ,

horns, hammering bass, drums, claves, cowbell, tambourine

and the power guitar from Terry Kath's Fender Telecaster.

 

I was humming the track after I swallowed a bottle of barbiturates

in the toilet at work and broke the window on my way to the floor.

I woke to a white ceiling, white coated doctors and I cried

“why aren't I dead. I wanted to die.” That song returned to haunt me

 

7 mins and 40 seconds of this surging heavy metal version

of the Spencer Davis Group song with passionate vocals, organ,

horns, hammering bass, drums, claves, cowbell, tambourine

and the power guitar from Terry Kath's Fender Telecaster.

 

Terry and I both married, had children but he lived on cocaine

and at a party in LA he picked up a 9mm pistol, said “don't worry,

it's not loaded”, pulled the trigger and “accidentally” killed himself.

When I heard the news I put on side three, track three to hear

 

7 mins and 40 seconds of this surging heavy metal version

of the Spencer Davis Group song with passionate vocals, organ,

horns, hammering bass, drums, claves, cowbell, tambourine

and the power guitar from Terry Kath's Fender Telecaster

 

on fire, slicing through sax, trombone and trumpet with his axe

while I was alive, glad I wasn't allowed to take the easy way out.

 

Rodney Wood’s poetry has appeared recently in The High Window Press, Iamnotasilentpoet, London Grip, The Lake, The Journal, Confluence, Riggwelter, The Ofi Press, Magma and Envoi. His debut pamphlet, Dante Called You Beatrice (Red Ceiling Press) is available from the author. He is also joint MC of the monthly open mic nights at The Lightbox in Woking, UK. 

 

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