2013

AUGUST CONTRIBUTORS

JOE BENEVENTO, CONNIE BENSLEY, RANDOLPH BRIDGEMAN,

 CATHERINE EDMUNDS, NEIL FULWOOD, RICKY GARNI, 

SHEILA GOLLIHUE, NORTON HODGES,  MARY ANN HONAKER,

 ALISON LOCK, MAMTA MADHAVAN, JOAN McNERNEY,  P.A.MORBID, 

KENNETH POBO, DEVIN TAYLOR, BOB WALICKI, PAUL WELCH

JOE BENEVENTO

After Marilyn Meshak Zipped Up My Pants
  
because one of our first grade classmates at St. Teresa of Avila
noticed my fly was undone, and Marilyn,
seeing me paralyzed with what would become chronic
embarrassment, could not wait for me to save myself,
her sympathy securing me against the others' jeers.

She never would suppose the crush I had already
decided even before she fingered the fly of my gold-
striped,  chocolate brown pants or the  years
ahead of touching her, almost, as when I umpired
close behind as she pitched seventh grade softball

or a year later when I came nearest to defeating
eight years of ineptitude by asking her to dance
to the deafening decibels of a heavy rock band,
where we fruged and fretted without
once managing to undo the space between us.

And each time her light blue eyes
might have been calling me to become
who I could not manage myself to be,
a peer, a protector, even, since I lacked then
the knowledge even Marilyns can have anguish,
 
might be waiting to have someone
secure them, not so much by promising
a perfect love, which can then never be,
as by being ready to step in if needed, 
perhaps even offering a hand

all those times we have something we ought to keep hidden.

Joe Benevento teaches creative writing and American literature at Truman
State in Kirksville, Missouri, USA.  He is the author of nine books of
poetry and fiction, including the poetry chapbook, Tough Guys Don't
Write, with Finishing Line Press.  His work has appeared in about 300
literary journals, including Poets & Writers and Bilingual Review.
  

CONNIE BENSLEY

Hippocamping About

I am in France, in some small,

unfamiliar town with a tantalisingly

changeable name.   The rough, grassy square

is hemmed in by buildings, and surely one of them

must be a cafe where I can get lunch.

Absently I rehearse the word escargot.

But the only occupied room is a sort of

cinema, with neatly dressed citizens

sitting in rows.  Conspicuous

is a woman wearing a bright blue shawl

and handcuffs.  I decide they are all here

to save on heating costs at home.

As I crane to see what they are watching

there is a sudden jump-cut and I am awake

mistily re-focusing my gaze, 

as the hippocampus gives up its games

and reminds me: (a) this is Tuesday,

(b) dentist: 10.30 a.m.  

 Connie Bensley was born in south-west London and has always lived there, apart from wartime evacuation. Her latest book from Bloodaxe is Finding a Leg to Stand On: New and Selected Poems, which presents new work with poems drawn from six previous collections: Progress Report and Moving In originally published by Peterloo Poets, and four later books published by Bloodaxe: Central Reservations (1990), Choosing To Be a Swan (1994), The Back and the Front of It (2000) and Private Pleasures (2007)

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RANDOLPH BRIDGEMAN

make up sex

when i said go fuck yourself
and you said you'd been doing that
for quite some time now
then i backed up the u-haul to
the front porch and loaded
up my belongings

a kenwood turntable with
a cracked dust cover
two speakers with blown woofers
from the party we had last summer
when i had zepplin blasting
and you said turn it down
so i cranked it up
and vibrated your avon
bottle collection off the shelf
and they busted all over
the living room floor
and you kicked my speakers in

then we had make up sex

i loaded up my golf clubs
that you gave away to
the salvation army
because i went out with my
buddies one friday night
and didn't come home until
monday morning
and i spent two days in
the thrift store waiting for them
to put my golf clubs on the floor
so that i could buy them back

then we had make up sex

i packed up my
blacklight velvet jesus painting
the one where you got fucked up
one night and shaved off the beard
because you couldn't get me
to shave off mine
and now under the blacklight
jesus looks like jerry garcia

then we had make up sex

then there's my waterbed with all
of its duct tape patches
from holes left by high heels
and hairpins
keys and belt buckles
all those times we had

make up sex

but when i asked for

break up sex

you broke my nose
and i had to drive all the way
back to the west coast
thinking of how i was going
to get you back  

Randolph Bridgeman graduated from St. Mary's College of Maryland and is the recipient of the Edward T. Lewis Poetry Prize for the most promising emerging poet. He was a Lannan Fellow for the Folgers Shakespearian Theater 04-05 poetry reading series. His poems have been published in numerous poetry reviews and anthologies. He has three collections of poems, South of Everywhere, Mechanic on Duty, and The Odd Testament.

Order a copy of Randolph's Mechanic On Duty here

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CATHERINE EDMUNDS

August

the coffee smells foul. she sips. smokes.
he waits.
a fat lass strolls by in red joggers -- dear god, must we? here?
they move. she doesn't know
never knew, lifts the cup to her lips and he misses the chance
to slip in a kiss

the light is spiked, heathenish and sultry.

in August
she'll come here again and declare
hasn't it chimed for the time of year!
and he'll pause. has it, dear?
that shouldn't be possible, not this time, not next

the brackets curl round and round and round
time for bed. the red-gingered tom waits in shadows.

 Her Cat

he leans
against a drystone wall
one thirsty-wet day

remembers
the roughness of tweed, thick socks, leather brogues
the way her cat closed its eyes
and rumbled with satisfaction
when he held it close,
the way she looked at him in disgust

the wind picks up
no cats here, just sheep
and close-cropped grass

he trudges on

 Prolific writer and artist Catherine Edmunds has more than 400 published
works to her name. Solo works for Circaidy Gregory Press include the poetry
collection wormwood, earth and honey and novels Small Poisons and
Serpentine, which explore what happens when art doesn't only reflect
life but is life itself.  Click here to visit her website.

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NEIL FULWOOD

 

No Money Down

 

The angel has flown the bony perch

of my right shoulder,

the demon departed the left.

 

Nil-nil in the age old struggle for the soul

of an unimportant man?

No such luck. They’ve relocated,

 

that’s all – the angel

to a commune where off-grid

and sustainability are the gospel du jour;

 

the demon to a car dealership.

 

The angel’s wings waft soft approval

when I recycle or cycle

or use public transport. The demon

 

has easy credit terms and a muscle car

sleek under showroom lights,

a V8 nightmare,

 

chassis cast in sulphur

on the Hades production line,

tank brimming with Devil-piss;

 

a car straight out of every drag race,

every road movie, every

rock ‘n’ roll song:

 

whitewall tyres, chrome grille,

two-tone paint job –

whorehouse red and midnight black;

 

a car to race through the back streets in,

a car to cruise the boulevards in,

a car to park on that crest of scrubland

 

overlooking the city,

break the seal on a fifth of bourbon,

toast the sunset that shrinks the avenues

 

to a wiring diagram of glass and neon,

and drink to the transience

of pretty people in favoured places,

 

envied and ogled for one night only;

 

a car to park by the chainlink fencing

at the end of the runway,

hood down and radio drowned

 

by the noise of a jet in its sluggish ascent,

silver girth of fuselage

carving the sun to a metal penumbra;

 

a car to stake against the turn of a card,

a car to drive 500 miles straight

to see a concert or meet a girl,

 

a car to slow down for a leathery hitchhiker

with a guitar case

and a twang in his voice

 

that’s strangely familiar, whose stories

make darker that stretch of the night

where the mind wanders

 

and the white line fades, the car drifting,

its vanishing point somewhere

beyond the ghostly hulks

 

of a Porsche Spyder, a Buick Electra

and a Plymouth Savoy last seen abandoned

at the Golden Gate Bridge,

 

doors open, keys in the ignition.

 

 

Neil Fulwood is the author of The Films of Sam Peckinpah and runs film review blog Agitation of the Mind (www.misterneil.blogspot.com). He’s a member of the Alan Sillitoe Committee, who are raising funds towards a permanent memorial to be sited in Alan’s home town of Nottingham, UK. Neil co-designed their website www.sillitoe.com.

 

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RICKY GARNI

  

David Ferry’s AENEID (II)

 

 The heavens don’t stay in the same place.
The heavens can make darkness more than darkness.
The heavens can make the earth dark and the sky dark and so there.
Here they are hiding from everyone but happy.
People from Troy are tuckered out by joy.
The moon says nothing, so why do you assume?
Why do you ever assume friendly?
The horse is filled with those who would ride smaller horses.
Not miniature horses, mind you.
Remember: we are talking about a large scale horse, moon size.
Big Horse.
Furtive are the free until like Troy they drop from joy.
Innumerable unpronounceable princes contort.
Well, consort.
Entering into the city ...
Imagine a town that drowns in its own wine...
Welcome, everyone. Welcome.

  

Ricky Garni works as a graphic designer for a wine company. His recent publications include Artocratic, Red River Review, and Kitchen and his most recent book is Dots. He lives in Carrboro, North Carolina, next door to the fire station.

 

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SHEILA GOLLIHUE

  

His Pen to Z’s Diary

With shaking hands
he makes me bleed
His fingers smell of nicotine
And I wished he wouldn't touch me
Better he let me lay and dry up

When I am shoved back to the shadows
frigid with dead brothers & sisters
I can hear them bicker
And he blames her for words he cannot find
I saw when he pried you open
Witnessed him breaking your defenses
to steal your words before
You disappeared

I remember when I grazed your pages

 

Sheila Gollihue is an eastern Kentucky native whose works have appeared in Kudzu and The Cut-Thru Review. In 2011, she was award first prize for her poem “The Girl” in Big Sandy Community & Technical College’s poetry contest.

 

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NORTON HODGES

 

Curtains

For Jackie Newby

 

She says she remembers the shirts I used to wear

When I was young, how soft the fabrics,

How flattering the style, shirts I’ve forgotten

Lie deep within her textural memory.

 

How strange sometimes the ways she thinks,

Her sensualities of cotton, linen, denim,

And the way she remembers every childhood outfit

Her late mother, that fine seamstress, sewed.

 

There are days when I too start to believe

The world really can be remade by hand,

Days when ordinary thoughts shine through

To meet the sun as you pull up the morning blind.

 

Then there are days like yesterday, when

Your friend, thin and coughing, looked set to lose all

The world’s tactility, all the cherished bric-à-brac of home,

The touch of homespun linen, the fabric of history.

  

Norton Hodges is the author of four volumes of poetry and seven translations. He was born in Gravesend, Kent, England in 1948. He studied French and German at the University College of Swansea and taught Modern Languages for 22 years. He has also worked as a pay clerk, book reviewer, adult literacy tutor and examination invigilator. He has an M.A (1980). and a PhD in Language and Literature in Education (1998), has published academic articles and has completed an Advanced Poetry Course with the Open College of the Arts. After medical retirement in 1997, he began to submit his poetry for publication. He has since been widely published in English poetry magazines and on the internet.  His work has also appeared in anthologies, has been translated into French, Russian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Portuguese and Urdu and has been digitised by the Poetry Library in London. He has also translated into English the work of the francophone poets Athanase Vantchev de Thracy and Théo Crassas and the Brazilian poet Aguinaldo de Bastos. In 2005, he was awarded the Grand Prix International Solenzara by a French jury from the Institut Solenzara. He lives in Lincoln.

 

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MARY ANN HONAKER

  

Low Tide

A poem is stuck in my throat.

Yesterday I walked at low tide,
saw the seafloor undressed:
bits of broken bottle in green and sheer,
deserted crabs and clams and mollusks,
abandoned by soft living flesh,
leaving only shell.
Several fused together in the mud,
a damp opalescent emptiness.

A poem is caught in my fingertips.

Once when the sea lifted her shimmering skirts
the sloop of the sun was sailing
ashore in clouds and the mud glowed
lavender, orange, fleshy pink.
I said to my lover, find your phone,
but he said, in a moment this will be gone,
he said, the camera can't capture it anyway,
so we sat on the porch and drank wine
while the colors shifted and faded.
I've never seen its like again.

A poem has clogged up my pen.

If you live long by the sea
you'll grow to love the low tide
odor of rot and faint tinge of feces
overlaid with salt.  If by the docks,
the smell of displaced fish,
their slow death when netted
and lifted from the brine.
If you live by the sea a long time,
so they say.  I'm merely at the hinge of years
where now I do not mind.

A poem is coaxed onto the page

and perhaps now the sea will swell in,
fill in the wells where the small lives struggle,
release them again into the cool dark depths.

 

Two Bird Hymn To Ishtar

The cormorant perched on a rock in the shallows,
a chip of coal in unchecked bright, a tear-drop
of midnight in midday, black as the shadow
under the sofa, where anything could be hidden.

Not fifteen feet off, the egret tiptoed in weedbed,
shock of laundry-white, cleaner than my best socks,
white as sanitized countertop, where not even
invisible evil resides.

And at last these two clear a path to you,
unfathomable lady, who is and is not,
who is wicked and blameless, and to what
you signify

with two owls by your owl-clawed feet.
What were you holding, bare-breasted mystery,
smiling so emptily?  Queen of cormorant

who dives beneath murk and seaweed,
who scours the bottoms, unsettles the mud,
black-winged, darkness-breasted, touched
by the wet of it, soaked, shining,

and egret who stands above on stick-leg stilts,
also shining, unsullied, sun-spangled, who dips beak
daintily and keeps every feather dry.

Yours the mirror of the lake-face, and who
can bear it.   Yours the shattering of becauses,
the unraveling of story-lines, the lies

told to keep feathers dry, the long dive
into the dark, the muddied beak, the
stirring of dirty depths, what soaks

and takes so long to dry. Yours also
the strength of the legs that lift
above all saturations, that bear

with dignity the clean bright neck.
Shy in the shallows, she hides from me,
shimmies her neck snake-like, finds

me wanting, steps into sky, glides
to far shore.  Cormorant stays close by.
Such is the season you have decreed for me,
O double-natured lady.

  

Mary Ann Honaker holds a B.A. in philosophy from West Virginia University, a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and a Paralegal Certificate from North Shore Community College.  She has previously published poetry in Harvard’s The Dudley Review, Crawlspace, Gold Dust, Dappled Things, Hoi Polloi, The Foliate Oak, The Gloom Cupboard, Euphony, Caveat Lector, Dark Sky Magazine, The Pennon, Spark, Off the Coast, and Zig Zag Folios.  She currently lives in Salem, Massachusetts.

 

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ALISON LOCK

 

Lichen

Condensation drips, revealing in rivulets
a garden: no flowers, a rotten ladder,
a pair of secateurs, rusted.

When I rub a hole-in-the-mist,
I see new tendrils, wild buds,
a wind-flicker of horsetail heads.

There's a long-bodied fox, nose
to the compost box, unafraid
of whoever-they-were,

those who left their words
on a sundial
under the crusts of lichen.

  

All that's left behind

Rubbed feathers stretch the wind
for those who do not make it over the sea
where tears fall from a sky
of broken wings
made brilliant with their weepings.

And each journey is both old and new
for those who travel the pencilled road
with a sketch of half-remembered,
half-read poems, and
sometimes a palindrome.

 

 

After War

Hollow winter wind
knuckles of soil
bone stoned
waiting for flesh
as crows salute
ploughs break
a silent truce
turning old soil
raising seed
black eyed
blood red.

  

Alison Lock has published a collection of poetry, A Slither of Air  2011, and recently, a collection of short stories, Above the Parapet. Her recent work includes a performance of collaborative work with a musician and visual artist for the launch of the Holmfirth Arts Festival. www.alisonlock.com

 

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MAMTA MADHAVAN

 

Epitah (for Cara)

i

May morning. Warm hands
of sunlight stretch to
adjust the time on my clock.

ii

9 o’ clock. Sun roses catch
the colors of dawn – rose,
peach, white, yellow. I
leave for work. Threads
of paisley dance intricately on
my skirt.

iii

A chunk of rainbow falls
on the colorless gravel after
an early shower.
Underneath
you rest as the hues
seep in through the mud.

 

Books

I wove fairy tales.
On our white crocheted
bedspread you lay listening,
chin cupped in both hands,
feet swinging.

We took the stairs
to the attic, where gossamer
webs caught glints of
the morning sun through
slats in the roof.

From old boxes,
dank and dusty elves and fairies
who once pranced
in the woods behind our house
escaped instantly;

dragons leapt from
behind the trees,
and mouth wide open,
you breathed fire into the
tattered covers and jaundiced pages.

As we flipped through them,
today became yesterday;
you took the crescent moon
and with a smug grin, put
her behind the clouds.

 

Mamta Madhavan is a freelance writer. Her poems have been published in
literary journals, anthologies and zines all over. She is a curator on staff at gotpoetry.com

 

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JOAN McNERNEY

 

An Accountant


grabbled with
white ledgers
& tight rows
of numbers.

He could
calculate
the secrets
of ciphers.

Who else would
appreciate the
eloquence of one?
This fat place maker
known as zero? Why
mystics marveled
at the holy seven?

While he slept his
dreams multiplied.
Suddenly long division
subtracted an unknown
quantity yet sums still
added up.

Where had his equations wandered?

 

 Joan McNerney's poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such
as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Spectrum, three
Bright Spring Press Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane
Publications.  She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net.  Four
of her books have been published by fine small literary presses.

 

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P. A. MORBID

 

The sky was full of stars again this morning

as I stepped out into the yard

barefoot and tired from too little sleep.

 

I smiled up at the Moon

an ivory button bitten by the night

the cold prickling goosebumps all over my arms.

 

And I thought of you

as I always do when you're not here

 

tucked up warm and asleep in bed

your naked body a world away from mine.

 

 

P. A. Morbid is a poet/noise maker from Middlesbrough. Editor of The Black Light Engine Room lit. mag. He walks a lot. Writes about walking too.

 

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KENNETH POBO

 

Honey Bees

 

In Ontario

37 million honey-

bees died:

pesticide

homocide.

 

In my underwear

on a Saturday night,

a biography of

Andre Breton open

on the desk, The Bee

Gees' Horizontal

playing, I try

 

to count up to

37 million --

one, two, three,

four, five, six,

 

the queen doomed -

summer can't slide

into deep just

open buds - only

 

a bee can go there:

ants crawl

on carcasses.

 

Kenneth Pobo has four poetry books published and sixteen chapbooks.  He
teaches creative writing and English at Widener University in Pennsylvania.

 

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DEVIN TAYLOR

 

My Dead Grandpappy's Recliner

 

My dead Grandpappy’s recliner

is brown and leather

and in my living room.

It’s where I take my naps

every day when I get home from school.

Before every nap,

I think...

 

I think long and hard

about how I’m napping on the same

recliner that my dead Grandpappy napped on.

Come to think of it,

I believe it’s the same recliner

he had his stroke on too.

These thoughts lull me

into an infantile slumber,

as my obsessive preoccupation

with mortality so often does.

 

And sometimes while I’m napping

my dead Grandpappy talks to me.

 

I’ll see an

apparition

of his corpse.

And he’ll awkwardly say to me

something like:

“Devin,

Why do you always refer to me

as your dead Grandpappy

when you used

to call me Pop Pop?”

 

And I’ll say to him

something like:

 

“Dead men ask no questions.”

And then sometimes I feel like

I’m a terrible person

and like I’m shutting him out...

Like I’m disconnecting from

this spiritual connection,

and giving the dead

the cold shoulder.

Well maybe I am,

but when I feel that way,

I just go watch

my dead Grandpappy’s

ol’ big screen tv

and I feel a whole lot better.

Like somebody opened

a can of flesh eating worms

six feet under.

  

Devin Taylor has been writing poetry regularly since the summer of 2011. He can often be heard at open mics in Annapolis and Greenbelt, Maryland. Devin was a featured reader at a 2012 Artomatic event, Zu Coffee, in Annapolis and Minas Gallery in Baltimore.

 

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ROBERT WALICKI

 

Still Falling          

It’s like the air created by a door when it’s closing
when another person shuts it, that one last look.
A strip of light revealing keys on a table,
crayons, finger paints, the glitter on the floor.
It is like the air in the restaurant that surrounds you
but you can’t see it
I was talking about the children,
about what was best.


You kept talking about natural remedies the benefits of thistle.
More tea, please and thank you and I kept thinking of the day
when we threw rice and some of it landed on your dress and
that one grain that landed on your eyelash and more
against the door of your car as they drove you away,
and still more caught on the back of my shoe.


And when I’m walking away from you like this
or when it’s raining,
changing over to sleet, freezing rain,
It’s as if the pieces thrown from that day are still falling,
making those small crunching sounds
when I walk over them.

 

  

Robert Walicki, A freelance poet and observer of the invisible, has found inspiration through writing and poetry over the years. He is a member of The Pittsburgh Writer's Studio and founder of The literary reading series, Versify at The East End Book Exchange. He has had his poetry published most recently in Blast Furnace, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette and The Quotable. When he’s not writing, he keeps busy organizing the chaos of creation daily with his wife Lynne and two cats, Buttons and Josie.

 

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PAUL WELCH

 

No Gaps

Outside my kitchen window
the clouds crowd the sky,
holding their silent wake
for the first snow of the winter.
The water from the tap
is sluggish and cold.
The grease from last night's plate
clots the few curly hairs of the balding sponge.
A small flying bug, a summer castaway,
leaps up from her oily pond---
eager to lay the eggs she never had
in the pool of some mountain waterfall---
then plunges blindly into the maelstrom
that thrusts her down the drain.
That the world is a place
of casual murder is well known.
If we could feel each like a tug at the iron
in our veins, it would surely pull our blood backward.
But my plate is drying on the rack,
children are hurling slush,
crouching behind parked cars below.
When the sun has finished setting,
the streetlights will immediately flick on.
Nothing is extinguished until everything is.

 

 

Paul Welch is originally from Richmond, Virginia. He has taught English to
international students for the last ten years in Beijing and San
Francisco. He received his MFA in poetry from San Francisco State
University in 2010. His current projects include translation of ancient
and modern Chinese poetry, as well as his own manuscript, entitled
Cicada Years.

 

  

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