2016

 

 

 

DECEMBER CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

 

David Callin, Mike Dillon, Alan Harris, Deirdre Hines, Anthony Keers, Boris Kokotov, Ronald Moran, Daryl Murananka, Nikki Robson, Jennifer Singleton, J. R. Solonche,

 Annie Stenzel, Mark Young.

 

 

 

 

 

DAVID CALLIN

 

Alleluia

 

After months of trousers, boots and winter weeds, to see her in a dress
is like finding the first wood sorrel of the year
on your usual walk. You're struck by the casual loveliness

of such self-revelation, with only a modest ta-da,
but there should be trumpets, fanfares for this resurrection out of the homely grass.
This is Bread-and-Cheese, Cuckoo's-Meat, Woodsour,

flowering in the month when folk were wont to go on pilgrimages;
named also, for their changed song, Alleluia:

white petals, purple-veined, and leaves you could eat in a green sauce.

 

 

David Callin lives, if not quite at the back of the beyond, certainly within hailing distance of it, on the Isle of Man, in what he likes to call the Deep South of the Kingdom of the Isles. He is married with a wife and two children, all of whom would rather you didn't mention the poetry. He doesn't mind. He has had poems published in quite a large number of magazines, most recently in Prole.

 

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MIKE DILLON

 

Osprey

 

A quick pivot

and guillotine

drop

 

into

a bright confusion

of spray

 

that gives birth

to a slow ascent

of labored wings

 

where a taloned

fish flashes

in the Sabbath

 

morning sun

acutely there

in the way

 

the rest of us

who watch

from the dock

 

are not

 

Mike Dillon lives on Puget Sound, northwest of Seattle in the northwest corner of the United States. Four books of his "regular" poetry have been published, and three books of his haiku. Several of his haiku were included in Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, from W.W. Norton in 2013.

 

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ALAN HARRIS

 

Memoir Writers

 

Resembling archeologists

anthropologists

ghost hunters

dumpster divers

Freudians without a couch

hoping to uncover the audience

waiting for us

between our words

and their lines

until we all find ourselves

knee-deep in discarded memories

forgotten fears and unspoken promises

falsely portraying

writers and readers

using touchpads and blogs

to dig dry wells

to jump into empty rabbit holes

to uncover shallow graves

in the backyards of our parents

as we search for something

resembling truth

 

Alan Harris is a hospice volunteer and graduate student who helps hospice patients write memoirs, letters, and poetry. Harris is the 2011 recipient of the Stephen H. Tudor Scholarship in Creative Writing, the 2014 John Clare Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Tompkins Poetry Award from Wayne State University. 

 

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DEIRDRE HINES

 

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady

 

In February of nineteen eighty,

'spells of mild weather drew redwing flocks

to the back field, chittucing over

her queenie voice, “Come look what I found”,

Two months into this diary

had only yielded a dog jawbone,

It needed more. “Dead rat at backdoor”

would resuscitate “It's middlin',

Today is a half and half morning..”

Two twigs replaced opposable thumbs,

One see through plastic made do as shroud,

Her broken ruler made measurements

figures replacing biography,

length of tail, of ear to rear, seven

inches, width of tail, barely a half,

weight of black whiskered, white undersided

yellow toothed rat,seven ounces.

We dug out divots by bent spoon

taking turns to twist stubborn sod,

“The insects will eat him,I mean it..”

Too late. Pronouns have consequence.

Was he descended from Nicodemus,

or Justin, or Brutus, or just plain old?

Their story on Saturday radio

that great escape from the labs of NIMH,

drew us like magnetic wordmoths.

ARE, leggy triangle,and a cross

taught them how to read their futures.

I lifted RAT then out of plastic

over barbed wire fence, into field

draped with catkins, pussy willow

until white waters at the Burn,

revealed a cairn of stone beneath

overhanging sticky budded boughs

marked with minute horse-shoe shapes,

the same as those her brolly missed

by a backwater near Kew Gardens,

when forty nine chestnut horses lit

lanterns in leaves botanical for

us all in bibliobiology.

 

 

( NIMH-National Institute of Mental Health )

 

 

Deirdre Hines is an award winning poet and playwright. Her first book of poetry The Language of Coats includes the poems that won The Listowel Collection 2011. It is published by New Island Books. New poems have appeared in The Bombay Review, Elsewhere, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Abridged, The Derry Post and NWW to name a few. She blogs on poetry at www.alllanguageisastroyofforestblogspot.com Her website is www.deirdrehines.com 

 

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ANTHONY KEERS

 

Tuesday Morning

 

Space is the fresh air above the

flock of magpies that chase the glimmer

of stars through the exchange of time

and money.

The planets are the stones that

stick in our shoes and asteroids

are the cars that run red lights.

Nebulas are sucked into

the mini-tornadoes

outside corner shops,

alien life

is sucked through the filter

of a cigarette and

the final frontier is

the distance between

a hurried

lady and a moving bus.

The universe is expanding

towards the snooze button.

 

Anthony Keers lives within the city of Manchester, England. He currently works within the Asbestos industry and has poetry forthcoming in Ink, Sweat and Tears.

 

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BORIS KOKOTOV

 

392

 

I went to Center Stage theater

to see Pinter’s The Homecoming

premiere, here in Baltimore.

 

My girlfriend got mad at me lately,

she's not around, so I got a ticket

just for myself, the cheap one.

 

Finding the seat was fairly easy --

the last in the row. Looking around

I spotted a small plate

 

next to the exit door. “No more

than 392 persons are permitted

in this area at any time”, it read.

 

When the performance was over

it was ten minutes break and then

a discussion began, actors and patrons

 

got engaged in a lovely exchange

about the plot and characters.

At some moment I raised my hand

 

and asked how we have arrived

to this exact number – and pointed

to the obscure plate. No one had a clue.

 

The play is about a PhD coming

home with his new wife after six

years of absence – a big surprise.

 

Now, she wants to screw both

his younger brothers and his dad

getting enthusiastic response

 

not only from members

of the household but also

from cheerful audience confined 

 

by the magical number

thoroughly calculated

in the depth of city’s fire department.

 

The theater-coming is precarious;

shouldn’t the sign be bigger,

the number smaller, the door wider?

 

We cannot escape reality, I guess,

but shouldn't we have a better chance

of escaping a theater?

 

And maybe, just maybe, similar plates

have to be issued for every dwelling

and for every outdoor space.

 

So when I came home that night

I quickly made one out of plywood,

wrote on it: "No more than 2 persons

 

are permitted in this area at any time”, 

and nailed it to my bed headboard.

Then I called my girlfriend...

 

Boris Kokotov is the author of several books of poetry. His poems have been published in periodicals in USA, Russia, Germany, Australia, and Israel. His translations from German Romantics were published in the anthology Vek Perevoda (The Century of Translation) in Moscow. His translation of Louise Glück's "The Wild Iris" was nominated for the best translation of the year 2012 in Russia. Most recently his work appears in Allegro, The Bewildering Stories, Boston Poetry Magazine, Constellations, and Chiron Review. He lives in Baltimore.

 

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RONALD MORAN

 

Fall Reverie

 

In the solitude of my living tomb, I am thinking

                            that

the over-pruned branches of my oak tree grew

                            too much life

this past summer, and, as they divest their debris

                            on my front lawn,

should I have them trimmed back again or should

                            I have my one

                           

tree removed, thus agitating our HOA Socialist

                            chapter

in this hyperactive, suburban sprawl I chose over

                           a decade ago

to move to with my dying wife, since we had family

                           up the street?

 

All have left now, and so has my Jane, leaving me

                           to declare,

I don't want anyone worrying about me.  I'm fine,

                           sure,

just like both sides in the First World War living

                           in trenches

dug for death, but that's a bit dramatic, isn't it,

                           as if

 

I were talking to someone or had a live audience

                           at hand,

another fantasy in this whimsical world I made

                          for myself,

for you, too, all of you, some known, loved, now

                           vanishing,

like life receding in branches of this tree I might

                          sacrifice.

 

 

Ronald Moran lives in Simpsonville, SC, USA and has had 13 books of poetry published, the most recent entitled Eye of the World  (Clemson University Press, 2016).  He has received a number of awards and distinctions for his poetry.

 

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DARYL MURANAKA

 

After the Disaster

 

After the disaster

of smelly pig poop

at the Great Brook Farm,

she resigned herself

to the reality

that her one and only daughter

was a city girl,

afraid of the farm smells,

the moving, the squirming

animals, the scents

of life and death,

too used to the crowded street

lined with maple trees

and Curious George on TV.

 

But in the failing light

of Grandpa’s country garden

by the light of the massive fire

burning in a crumbling

cinder block stove,

after charred marshmallows

for dessert,

she finds herself

creeping up,

sneaking up,

with the girl

by her side,

on the little green flashes

dancing around the garden,

catching the blinking bugs

in her hands

and sharing them

like a sacred secret.

 

Daryl Muranaka was raised in California and Hawaii and lived three years in Fukui, Japan.  He lives in Boston with his wife and children.  He enjoys aikido and taijiquan and exploring his children’s dual heritages. His first book Hanami, was published in 2015.

 

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NIKKI ROBSON

 

Invocation

 

the old year went down in a storm,

its hull snapped

like the bones of a wren.

 

a woman

 

knits by the fire,

rips, knits,

knits and rips

unpatterns.

Her needles click a rosary:

knit one, purl one, mother of God,

now and at the hour

 

fire spits on the rug,

the burnt eyes

of those who cannot sleep.

 

the woman

stands on grey sand,

each year  

sees a bow break the waves

sees the waves break a bow;

 

in her dreams

sea patterns sand

 

their fingers

almost touch.

 

Nikki Robson’s poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Acumen, Under the Radar, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Lunar Poetry and Obsessed with Pipework. In 2015 she was awarded First Prize in the Elbow Room competition and Highly Commended in Wigtown and Carer’s UK.

 

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JENNIFER SINGLETON

 

The Periodic Table that Sings Songs

 

It was just one of those things.  Lips melded to

The metal, the ties that bind through science

 

Of the elements.  Lithium, manganese, beryllium,

And titanium, the ultimate eruption of the force

 

That throws up back into the past into the future.

Calcium, zirconium, a body needs the elements.

 

Can I not get that from licking the fruit of a body?

A body that lies still and frozen on my bed?

Worn out from the rigors of making love?

 

Rhodium, silver, odium, periodically I make

Adjustments, to the chemical needs

 

Of the world that surrounds us. The universe

That makes plans without us.

 

Is this God making a play happen?  Conforming

To the mouths and being in the right light

 

As we perform.  God help me,

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  Cannot

 

The same thing be told of my chemical makeup?

Cannot the same thing be told of my Harp that

 

Said “Hallelujah” when sung by my own

Work worn-out fingers.  Plucked.  It seemed

 

By the own God that created osmium, mercury,

And lead.  The ghosts at night were a bit much.

The past with chains I did not believe.

But the dreams became as real as zirconium.

 

Polonium. I dreamt of chemistry and found very

Little in my mind of the body.  The same body

 

That found sleep-darkness exciting.  Yet

Unknown.  Chemicals make up who I am. They

 

Are the thigh-born birth of those righteous and un-

Righteous.  They are flirtations that have their

 

Consequences and necessary shy of tongue.  It is

With longing that I consult the Tarot.  I learned

 

To write before I consulted the dead.  I learned to

Read before I shied away from the body of water

 

That would hold me to the elements, the warm

Blanket that you would hold out to me, in the

 

Time you had left.  The saints held a séance. Within

Us, we drew a breath.  I wanted my chemical lips

 

To hold yours, yours with longing.  I wanted the birds

To sing their treasured song.  Radium, francium,

 

You have no part here in my body.  You are as

Fragment as the ghost.  Lingering still, urging as

 

Though through longing, you can forget the past. 

 

Jennifer Singleton is a librarian with publications in the Australian journal Free Expressions, Black Heart Journal, Phree Write Journal, aauduna, Foliate Oak Journal and several others. She lives with two dogs in Dallas, TX.

 

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J. R. SOLONCHE

 

The Snow Poem The Editor Asked Me For A Long Time Ago And Which He Probably Thought I Forgot About

 

Because you have asked for a poem about snow,

I have tried to think of my first memory of snow.

I have tried very long and very hard to remember

 

if I was a child in my carriage while my mother was pushing me,

with difficulty, through the slush of the melting snow

of late March in front of our apartment building in Manhattan,

 

on Washington Heights, or if the first snow I remember

was in Montreal. I remember it took seven hours on the bus,

and when we arrived at the hotel, they said they didn’t have a room,

 

they were full, and we had to find a room somewhere else,

but it was raining, I remember it was rain falling down on the street,

not snow. I remember very well. Perhaps the first was the snow

 

I played in with my brother after we moved to the Bronx,

how in the winter we used cardboard boxes instead of sleds

because we didn’t have sleds, but I don’t remember.

 

Maybe the first snow I remember wasn’t even real snow

but was fake snow inside those water-filled, baseball-sized glass

globes we had as kids. My daughter had one on a shelf in her room.

 

 

I remember shaking it and watching the fake snow swirl and fall

and swirl and fall and swirl and fall and swirl and fall.

I’m sorry I can’t say for sure. It seems rather sad now that I read

 

this over. But you know the word snow does appear a lot,

and a poet once said that to discover what any poem is all about,

you just seek out the noun that appears the greatest number of times,

 

and that’s what the poem is all about. So here is your poem about snow.

He was a very famous poet, you know.

Please remember that.

 

 

Black Satin Petunias

 

I bought black flowers today.

Black Satin petunias.

And they really are black.

My wife says I bought them

because I’m in love with death.

I say I bought them because

they’re unusual, and we’ve never

had black flowers before.

Besides black is my favorite

color and has been my favorite color

since I was a kid, since I asked

my Russian grandfather what

his favorite color was, and

he said it was black. He said

black was God’s favorite color.

He said even after God created light

and all the colors of the rainbow

along with the light and divided

the light from the darkness,

he still needed black the other

half of the time to keep from being

blinded by his own creation.

My wife may be on to something.

I might be half in love with death.

 

 

J.R. Solonche has been publishing in magazines, journals, and anthologies since the early 70s. He is author of Beautiful Day (Deerbrook Editions), the chapbook Hearts Content (Five Oaks Press) and co-author of Peach Girl: Poems for a Chinese Daughter (Grayson Books). He lives in New York's Hudson Valley with his wife, the poet Joan I. Siegel, and nine cats, at least three of whom are poets. His latest book, Won’t Be Long is reviewed in this month’s issue.

 

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ANNIE STENZEL

 

But we are really the dust of ancient stars

 

The difference between immigrants

and natives

is all in your mind:

Nobody got here first. 

We all crawled out

of the womb together

and even that was not the beginning.

 

Whether you believe in Eve, or evolution,

you must know our ancestors

share a common grave.

Everyone’s blood is blue

while safely contained

in the body

and then

when shed,

always bright red.

 

 

How to be Spared Disappointment

 

1

 

Scour the hope jar of its contents

then place it in an airless vault where dark

and cold will keep it empty as a bell

forever. 

 

2

 

Take a keen look at your future companions;

divide by two

subtract the majority.

 

3

 

Pile the kitchen table with promises

made by and to those you love.

Remove the table.

 

4

 

This part is the hardest:  from first

to last, expect that exhaled breath

will follow inhaled breath and vice versa.

 

Now stop that.

 

 

Annie Stenzel‘s poems have recently appeared (or are forthcoming) in the journals Catamaran Literary Reader, Ambit, and Kestrel, and online in Rose Red Review, Unsplendid, and Blue Lyra Review.  Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  By day, she works in a San Francisco law office.

 

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