2018

 

 

JANUARY CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

Joe Balaz, Irene Cunningham, Molly Day, Robert Klein Engler, Mike Gallagher,

Beth Gordon, Edward Lee, Patricia Leighton, Megan Denese Mealor, Sarah White,

 Mark Young, Hongri Yuan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

JOE BALAZ

 

Squeezed Into Shape Like Wun Sausage

 

Spilling my coffee on da rug

is how I read wun Rorschach test in disgust.

 

No mattah how you live wit it

dere’s always cause and effect in da stain.

 

 

Flying in wun nightmare

is da way I temporarily remove myself.

 

Notice how da wax and feathers fall away

wen I get closah to da sun.

 

 

Pulling into wun schoolyard

and not parking my tricycle in wun stall—         

 

Maybe dis aversion to accountability

began wit my first expression wit wun crayon.

 

 

Removing white lint from my black sweater

is neither compulsive nor cathartic.

 

It’s just dat da night doesn’t seem complete

unless I eliminate all da tiny stars.

 

 

Denying myself of wun rainbow

is how I deal wit dat elusive pot of gold. 

 

No sense tinking of riches

wen life only gives you shades of gray. 

 

 

Walking on wun tightrope

witout wun balance pole

 

seems much easier to do

wen you notice dere’s no safety net.

 

 

Desiring wun answer to wun demon

is like jumping into wun meat grinder.

 

Any longing will simply be processed

and squeezed into shape like wun sausage.

 

 

Lying down on wun shrink’s leather couch

staring and mouthing words to da ceiling—

 

All da notations wit pen and pad

is nutting but expensive chicken scratching.

 

 

Looking into wun mirror

trying to make sense of it all—

 

Moa bettah to just accept it as is

and realize dat everyting is merely subjective.

 

 

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai'i Creole English) and in American English. Some of his recent Pidgin writing has appeared in Heavy Feather Review, Public Pool, Tuck Magazine, and Unlikely Stories Mark V, among others.  Balaz is an avid supporter of Hawaiian Islands Pidgin writing in the expanding context of World Literature.  He presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

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IRENE CUNNINGHAM

 

Being Scottish

A preoccupation with rainfall...showers

falling on upturned faces. Nature

and technology are wed.

We dance, turn to catch the thrill,

groan
at the first blast of hot water.

If ritual kills our passion, drowns us in ordinary
tasks, we can’t bask in magical meetings –
life’s habits curb the meaning of O.

This is not a country of pleasant summer rain:
to run naked, however sprightly the dance,
is illegal, and decidedly cold.

We use tools, keep to the rules, wrapping

ourselves in modesty mostly,

while dreaming of song in the rain.

 

 

Irene Cunningham has had many poems published in lit mags across the years, including London Review of Books (as Maggie York), New Welsh Review, New Writing Scotland, Stand, Iron, Writing Women, Northwords Now, Poetry Scotland and others. She lives at Loch Lomond. Website is here,  http://ireneintheworld.wixsite.com/writer

 

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HOLLY DAY

 

Unfinished

 

he started the book and the leaves curled to embrace him

sent tendrils in curlicues to bind his wrists, insisting

it’s only a book, years later

he’s still watering its pages and feeding it flies.

 

inside the man bloomed a story that wouldn’t die

grew helplessly parasitic and devoured his days

to the consternation of neighbors who shook their heads at his dreams

talked about how his roof was falling apart.

 

 

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her published books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.

 

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ROBERT KLEIN ENGLER
 

Fire in a Time of Frost

 

The room is filled with voices growing old.

A Chinese chest has one carved door ajar.

How many secret letters does it hold

from couples off to seek an oriental star?

Yet here we gather with the fallen leaves

that rush headlong across the downhill street 

into the gutter’s well. Like fleeing thieves, 

we tell our poems and try to be discreet.  

But I sit here on edge, for if he knocked

and entered in the hall, our eyes would greet,

then fix in place and like a magnet locked,

two souls in spite of years reach out to meet.

        I hope no two hand, clinging love will show.

        My one hand love should easily let go.

 

 

Robert Klein Engler lives in Omaha, Nebraska and sometimes New Orleans. He is a writer and artist. His many publications are available in print or on the Internet. Robert holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana and the University of Chicago Divinity School, where he studied religious art. You may find his writing scattered over the Internet. At present he is an Ed Tech Assistant at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, NE.

 

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MIKE GALLAGHER

 

Birthright

 

The storm lantern swayed,

Sped us to the byre

By the sleeping river,

Sought ancestral ghosts

In three o’clock shadows.

Small hands teased small hocks

From the heaving cavern,

Blew life into glazed nostrils.

Mother and son eased back

Through dawn-lit haggerts.

She prepared beestings

For her eldest son,

Then wrote to the Kilburn farmer:

The red heifer had a bull calf.

 

 

Dissonance  

 

A host of starlings

Converge on Casey's Field.

The laurel, the holly,

Telephone wires shimmer

In speckled luminance.

From the whitethorn hedge

Emerge settled tribes.

Robins, thrushes, blackbirds

Scurry en masse

To bare-branched battlements.

Across Derra’s scrawny bog

Echo the taunts, the gibes,

The mocking mimicry:

‘Tis mine! It’s not! ‘Tis mine! It’s not!

 

I retreat indoors to scenes

From Mesopotamia and Iraq;

Across its ditches and deserts

Re-echo the taunts, the gibes,

The mocking mimicry:

'It’s mine! ‘Tis not! It’s mine! ‘Tis not!

 

Ancient chants beguile

The common instinct

Of bird and man;

Our past, once more, becomes our present,

But man learns nothing:

There is no death in Derra.

 

Mike Gallagher, an Irish poet and editor, has been published and translated worldwide. He won the Michael Hartnett Viva Voce award in 2010 and 2016, the Desmond O'Grady International award in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Hennessy award in 2011. His collection, Stick on Stone, is published by Revival Press at http://www.limerickwriterscentre.com/books/stick-on-stone/

 

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BETH GORDON

 

The Orange Blouse

 

Sunlight spins through

blue curtains, so violent

it will swallow her.

She touches the light on her breast

and thinks art should always

feel this good.

 

Today you are light,

you shine like a pear

and the room shines

with you.  I see you

like no one else, your skin

is yellow, your skin is blue,

you hold a stocking, hum

lightly, wonder what you

will eat today.  The lines

of your body melt away.

 

How strange he does not

see that she will not be

right.  He changes colors

every day, purple, white,

red.  Removes the flowers,

fills a jug with wine.

The flowers grow back,

he talks in his sleep,

the shadow has grown

larger than a shadow.

 

Somewhere,

in another room, she says

his name.  He looks up,

he looks up again.

She says,

my hair is black,

& shimmers like a mirror.

You drown me in orange,

I am a winter moon.

 

 

Beth Gordon is a writer who has been landlocked in St. Louis, Missouri for 17 years but dreams of oceans, daily. Her work has recently appeared in Into the Void, Verity La, Quail Bell,Calamus Journal, Five:2:One, After Happy Hour Review and others. She can be found on Twitter @bethgordonpoet.

 

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EDWARD LEE

 

Fake

 

The rose that grew

in the rubble of yesterday

was photoshopped.

It was really a weed,

days from death

and unaware

of the deception

heaped on it

by some stranger

on a computer

a thousand miles away,

forgotten flowers fading

on the corner of his desk.

 

 

Gone

 

Last night

the sky forgot

its jewels of stars

and moon,

the silence that fell

beneath its nakedness

was like the day after

the end of the world,

when peace is born

and will last;

 

in bed I turned to you,

my hand seeking

your swollen stomach,

waiting for the gentle kick

 

that never came.

 

Edward Lee's poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll.  His debut poetry collection Playing Poohsticks On Ha'Penny Bridge was published in 2010. He is currently working towards a second collection.

 

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PATRICIA LEIGHTON

 

opening up to an enigma

 

evening   the end of

a hot summer’s day

melding into a late

humid twilight

 

the doorbell chimes

- a muted ‘westminster’

I almost fail to hear -

and I rise   move

towards the door   see

his shade   smallish

silhouetted on the other

side of textured glass

 

I open up to the extent

of the security chain

lean to peer through

the gap 

 

he might be

oriental   certainly

not Caucasian

though not dark

skinned   the eyes

ultramarine   not quite

oval not quite round

                    his face

 

smooth in parts

channelled in others

                  changeable

like the surface of

a lesser planet

in a further galaxy

seen through

a shifting focus

 

he raises an index

finger   its opal nail

glistening  

              and points

 

madam   I am selling

stars   can I interest

you in buying one                                                                                   

 

a long pause

 

     what for   I mean

    what would I do with one

 

the choice would be yours

 

the sky has darkened

over his shoulder 

 

I see Sirius between

chimney pots

 

I couldn’t touch it   land

on it   exist on it   and no-

one would care a jot

about a star named

after me

           besides  I say 

(choosing to forget clouds)

                 I can see

millions of stars any

              night of the year

                  

        seeing

                   he says

is not the same

as having

 

his eyes are soft

they smile quietly

              I unlatch

the chain   open

the door further

contemplate

letting him in

 

Patricia Leighton has work published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Interpreter’s House, Orbis, HQ, Bridport and Artemis, and is a member of the Shropshire based Border Poets.

 

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NICOLE MASON

 

How to Fashion a Voodoo Doll for Occult Night

 

Step One:

 

Observe the trees.

Observe their burn. Collect

their branches,

maybe some leaves.

Don’t mind the smoke.

It will pass.

 

Step Two:

 

Once, when you were small,

you buried a bird

all dead under your swing-set.

The wide-open

eyes should still be there.

 

Step Three:

 

Forget the can’t of your finger

hooked into the collar

of his shirt.

Forget the parcel of necessity.

There must have been curtains.

The sheer kind

that blow and move

with summer air.

Forget them.

The gone will fill a void.

 

Step Four:

 

Stuff the doll full

of your own hair,

your blood, your saliva.

Stuff it with your teeth

and your fingernail clippings.

Sew it tight

with your own skin.

When it burns on the pyre

it will feel like delight.

 

Nicole Mason received her MA in Literature from Northern Michigan University and currently teaches composition and creative writing at Indiana University of South Bend. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Midwestern Gothic, Slipstream, Atticus Review, (b)OINK, SOFTBLOW, and others.

 

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MEGAN DENESE MEALOR

 

Color-Coded & Iridescent

 

You dress in dogwood rose,

claret, jungle green;

chisel Chinese violet

out of bones and ebony.

 

I found a scribbled sonnet

inside your June bud jeans,

saw the way you danced in Venice,

your lines a sleek, sweet cream.

 

Your eyes could be a landscape,

its sky every shade of blue.

The instant when your heart stood still:

the most fuchsia part of you.

 

Megan Denese Mealor spins words into wares in Jacksonville, Florida. Her work has appeared most recently in The Ekphrastic Review, Liquid Imagination, Danse Macabre, Degenerates: Voices for Peace, Right Hand Pointing, and Third Wednesday. Diagnosed as bipolar at fifteen, Megan’s mission is to inspire others stigmatized by mental illness. “Color-Coded & Iridescent” originally published in Obsessed With Pipework, Spring 2014.

 

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SARAH WHITE

 

“Not waving but drowning” 

                        (after Stevie Smith)

 

We are the arctic animals

With our glassy world and billowy drifts

Not mounting but melting.

 

We cower in caves, cover our heads,

                  not hearing but hurting,

                  not sleeping but seething.

 

The cubs assemble

                  not to play but to blame.

 

The path trails away

Not opening but sloping

Over unfamiliar dunes

And sparse vegetation.

 

The island founders.

A figure writhes in the surf.

 

 

TWO SHIPWRECKS

 

1.

 

Stars disturbed, April 15, 1912              

 

Orderly lies the bride ida at her husband’s side—

Iced, salted, boned, dissolved in arctic waters,

Sliding by choice from the deck of titanic

Whose passengers upstairs were strauses (one s),

Downstairs, valets and maids, nameless.

 

No pearls or eyes were found in the full fathoms,

Only plankton and brine. But ida’s fur mantle

Warmed the shoulders of a young woman staring

In a lifeboat as the great hull lost each light—a sight­

That stained and graced that survivor’s mind forever.

 

 

2.

           

To the captain of the ferry, April 16, 2014

                                   

The ferry “sewol” capsized and sank off the tip of south korea.  304 passengers, mostly secondary school students, instructed to stay in their cabins, perished while the captain was rescued.

 

With a clean suicide, captain lee, you might save face—

Your own, not the faces or hands

Of those below, who held their salt-soaked phones

And told their parents how it was to drown. 

 

The drowned were young, captain lee. The young

Learn fast. As fast as water passes through the clothing,

They passed with flying colors, earned high honors

While you let the coast guard pass you safely home.

 

The drowned are young. For years to come

They’ll haunt their schoolrooms and their houses,

Scolding mothers who refuse to be consoled.

Rather than scold you, captain lee,

 

They’ll wear their flying colors  

And medals at your ceremony,

Chanting for you, captain lee,

The anthems of undoing.

 

Sarah White's most recent published collections are The Unknowing Muse (Dos Madres, 2014) and Wars Don't Happen Anymore (Deerbrook Editions, 2015) and to one who bends my time (Deerbrook Editions, 2017). She lives, writes, and paints in New York City.

 

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MARK YOUNG

 

Assembling the home gym

 

The sun, the

cat out in it

with the white

of its tortoise-

shell coloring

looking as if dry-

cleaned, Miles &

Gil Evans doing

Aranjuez some-

where inside

the living circle,

a couple of guys

from the local

handyman company

putting together

a home gym in

the downstairs

previous lounge &

library & which will

remain so for me

since any exercise

will come vicariously

from the memory of

its assembly & not

the using of it. It

is one of those

days when you

sit in the middle

of everything do-

ing nothing except

wonder where the

next poem might

be coming from

& if it will arrive

in time for lunch.

 

Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. He is the author of over forty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. Recent work has appeared in Unlikely Stories, Word for /Word, Marsh Hawk Review, BlazeVOX, & X-Peri, as well as a number of other places.

 

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HONGRI YUAN

The Sun of Unknown Night

 

I believe that black stones spawn the honey of the heaven

And the death brings us the Golden Dawn

The earth is our other body

While the oceans are initially sweet and serene eyes

My every tear is burning

Bearing a diamond

And when my body is consigned to the flames

Heaven begins to enter my body

At this time I bloom in death

Like the sun of unknown night

 

不知黑夜的太阳

我相信黑色的石头酿成天堂之蜜

而死亡让我们迎来金色的黎明

大地是自己另一个躯体

而海洋最初 是甘美而宁静的眼睛

我的每一滴泪水都在燃烧

而且结出一颗颗钻石

当我五脏六腑在火焰中空无

天堂 开始进驻了我的身体

此时的我 在死亡中绽放 如一轮不知黑夜的太阳

 

Translated by Yuanbing Zhang

 

 

Hongri Yuan, born in China in 1962, is a poet and philosopher interested particularly in creation. Representative works include Platinum City, Gold City, Golden Paradise, Gold Sun and Golden Giant. His poetry has been published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada and Nigeria.

 

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