2019

 

 

 

JANUARY CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

Stefano Bortolussi, Clare Crossman, Greg Dotoli, Oz Hardwick, Beth McDonogh,

Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco, Todd Mercer, Joan Michelson, Kenneth Pobo,

Alec Solomita, Pamela Sumners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

STEFANO BORTOLUSSI 

 

Among the Curves

 

And I feel like I've been here before

                                    David Crosby

 

Guido, I' vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io

fossimo presi per incantamento

                                    Dante Alighieri

 

The canyon of laurels is not

what it seemed to be back then,

when Joni & David & Neil were

carried by enchantment and transported

by wooden ships very free on the water

to the sound of the sparse notes

rising from a tamed corner of forest;

now living together are just the spiders,

weavers of sails among eucalypti,

and the wind fills only their creations

glowing geometrically in the good enchanter’s rays:

and yet if you listen — if you smell — if you stop

among the curves, if you don’t lift your gaze

but lose it into the thickets and the crags,

where the houses cling absurdly like bridges

that dive into the void only to hesitate and withdraw

in fear, you can still hear some scattered chord

from the times when the singing was not in the past,

when the present was the unrivalled languor

of the slowly unraveling summer.

 

 

Reverse Icarus                                                                   

 

I am puzzled as the newborn child

I am troubled at the tide

                                    Tim Buckley

 

Stay with me under these waves tonight

                                    Jeff Buckley

 

The ocean is so cold that it wakes you up to yourself,

so clear that it shows the shadow of your blue-palmed

hands as a relic of a different creature,

more complex in body yet easier in soul,

or possibly as the simple whim of a willful goddess

hidden among the rocks and determined to wreak

her archaic vendetta: this is a land where

she would have chosen to return, moving

from the violated islands of her birth.

Sometimes, however, two strokes are enough,

two kicks behind you as if to free yourself

from a clutch and resurface elsewhere,

at the outskirts of a Memphis that now belongs

to more than one myth, in the unconceivable currents

of the Father of the Waters where Jeff son of Tim

dove toward his fate of a reverse Icarus

and stopped singing his Halleluiah.

Sometimes it is enough to let yourself be seized

for an instant by this icy and inchoate force,

to feel the call the violence the obsession

of the waters that scythe and nourish this vast country.

 

 

Stefano Bortolussi is a poet, novelist and literary translator. In his native Italy he has published three poetry collections (Ipotesi di caldo, 2001; Califia, 2014; I labili confini, 2016) and four novels (Fuor d'acqua, 2004; Fuoritempo, 2007; Verso dove si va per questa strada, 2013; Billy & Coyote, 2017). His poetry has been also published in magazines and webzines, both Italian and international, such as Interno Poesia, Atelier, Words for the Wild and Ink, Sweat and Tears. 

 

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CLARE CROSSMAN

 

The Mulberry Tree

 

Nothing was ever wasted: elastic bands,

old envelopes, paper bags put neatly

away. It was because of the war,

that might come back; and so we had to

eat our greens, not leave the crusts on bread

pretend to like rice pudding.

 

Jam was made from berries of the mulberry tree.

Kept high on shelves in the cool basement,

rusty red, almost amber, sweeter than raspberries.

‘The lovers tree’ she called it:

soft wood, gnarled and leaning,

standing in the garden for years.

We were allowed to climb it,

imagined we’d find rolls of silk.

Slept beneath it in a tepee; unafraid.

 

We had seen the rubble.

The shells of houses with no floors,

the strange murals of fireplaces

imprinted on high walls.

But could not imagine what it was like

when bombs fell from the sky.

 

We were the future, held in photographs,

bright against the day.

The lucky ones, swinging on the branches

of a golden age; come out of a terrible

knowledge, into a lengthening shade.

 

Clare Crossman lives outside Cambridge, UK.  She has published three collections of poetry with Shoestring Press, Nottingham, the most recent of which is The Blue Hour. In 2017 she published Winter Flowers, a short biography of her friend the Cumbrian artist Lorna Graves. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies, currently Poems for the NHS, Onslaughtt Press.

 

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GREG DOTOLI

 

Haiku

 

busy grey squirrel hears

fall acorns pit pat bounce

dashes out of nest

 

sun sets on pine run

shadows sprint for tilting sun

branch and bark flashes

 

bored black calico 

studies scuttling beetles

planning an attack

 

quiet sunrise mirror

orange purple clouds and moon

off wet bullfrog eye 

 

bright red cutthroat trout

sense dancing beetles

splash wakes desert fox

 

hissing fall raindrops

tapping rich soil and roses

night scents meander

 

red grey woodpecker

scuttles and hopscotches

listening for ants

 

Gregg Dotoli lives in Nutley, NJ, USA and has poetry published in many Anthologies, magazines and journals in the United States, Europe and Asia.

 

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OZ HARDWICK

 

Cut-up

 

I still find the occasional word,

slipped down the side of the chair,

or under kitchen units, where the cat

has chased them, mistaking them for spiders.

 

Like the cat, I sometimes don’t

recognise them for what they are,

taking them for leaves or feathers,

desiccated residue from seasons and symbols,

 

so I’m jolted by small surprise to discover

the worn prints of tongues, the faint

smear of lips. I slip them into

an envelope I keep under my pillow;

 

shuffle them in lamplight, looking for meaning.

 

Oz Hardwick’s work has been published and performed internationally in and on diverse media. He has published seven poetry collections, most recently Learning to have Lost (IPSI, 2018), and has edited and co-edited several more. Oz is Professor of English at Leeds Trinity University, where he leads the Creative Writing programmes. www.ozhardwick.co.uk

 

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BETH MCDONOUGH

 

Fife Coastal Path
For Amanda

 

On this next lost odd, wonderful day
we traipse a coast,
link up patterns from firth to firth.

Shapes of left-over snow,
then ironed-down grass
have passed on to places

to be stewarded by ramsons
or bridal commitments to sloe.
Soon, curated by bluebells, wood sorrel

and then our first Welsh poppy
will yellow under trees keen
to canopy. Cleared skies. But now,

with the comforting sustenance, soup
we are just eyes, and foot, after foot
walking in winter, through spring, to summer.

 

 

Transition

Pretend-trace new silk in old clouds,
as you might manage sometime, elsewhere.
Let this season leave silent as grace.

Try now to toe between colour wonders,
or punk spiky in wanna-burst bulbs.
Imagine-rub garlic's green scent.

Not here, where the last swallow’s nest
falls into glaur. Here, where rain, and more rain,
still sediments promise from leaves.

This mild won't stay. Stall in time’s recognised grit.
Keep space for spring, as we peer into mud
for angry rhubarb’s too-tiny fist. Raised.

 

 

Swimming. 10^th November, Air 5.5°, Water 9°
 

Our garden’s morning yellows,
boughed-down with Golden Hornet crabs.
All arc against those bluest skies
too confident at frost’s start.

Beached, I trace colours flickering water.
But submerged, I fail to fickle any words
for hues, struggle to filter shades, or tell
how sands fold, tack ambers to this iced world.

Xanthos to the Ancient Greeks. Perhaps.
I duck up to Homer’s Oinpos – wine-like.
Not dark. This surface spreads,
bowls limitless in light land won't define.

Home, with each sore foot planted
in hot water bottled soft, I note
how that crab apple glitters,
unconfined by what we know.

Beth McDonough’s poetry appears in Causeway, Antiphon, Interprete’s House and elsewhere; she reviews in DURA. Handfast (2016, with Ruth Aylett) explores family experiences – Aylett’s of dementia. and McDonough’s of autism. She was recently Writer in Residence at Dundee Contemporary Arts.

 

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ELIZABETH MCMUNN-TETANGCO

 

The Last Autograph

 

We eat lunch

close to the place

where James Dean died.

 

The whole

restaurant wall

is full

 

of him:

his films, his face, his

smashed-in

 

newsprint car.

On a poster

there’s a picture

 

of a ticket,

and the sign beneath says

the last autograph.

 

White clouds are fraying

out the window, aging

 

hands.

 

On our way home we pass

the marker: where 

 

he hit.

Do the dead like silver

streamers, or old roses? He

 

was only twenty-four.

Some of here

was once the bottom 

 

of an ocean,

with each tide heaving

 

like care,

 

holding itself.

 

 

Rubbings

 

her friend died

so we drove

 

out to his grave

out by the highway

 

and she sat

and talked

 

and later

i would go to that same graveyard

with a friend

who made grave-rubbings

 

and i’d sit

and talk to him

 

in the cold dark

and he would work

 

he said

it was a way

to love, at least

 

for him

 

the night it changed

between the two of us

he made me feel

 

like gravestones

and

 

i don’t

know what a gravestone even

is

 

i think

 

a marker

or a way to say

you’re sorry

 

or a tooth

that sticks out 

wrong

 

that you keep

touching —

 

out of love?

 

i heard that he put all 

the rubbings

 

up on facebook

and that strangers said what

beauty

 

and i at first thought of her

her curly hair

dark in the rain

 

and her cold

fingers

on the edges of the stone

 

and i thought how

 

i never knew someone

who died

 

Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco lives in California's Central Valley and co-edits One Sentence Poems. Her chapbooks, Various LIes, Lion Hunt, and Water Weight (which is free online!) are available from Finishing Line Press, Plan B Press, and Right Hand Pointing, respectively.

 

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TODD MERCER

 

Water Under the Bridge of Sighs

By the time of reconciliation

trees grow through the railroad track

behind a house that lacks a roof.

The neighbors can’t remember

where the family relocated.

Bygones are bygones

rather than felonious sins

but the forest devoured

half the homeplace yard.

Seedlings spread over meadow

once mowed twice weekly,

fertilized to emerald green.

 

By the time I’m finally sorry too,

ready to shoulder a share of blame,

I’m an orphan who’s reduced to

one-way graveyard conversation.

Busses don’t stop there, planes flyover.

I rented a car to drive in,

to cross the divide judged impassable.

I bought extra insurance,

guarding against accidents before arriving

with grace foremost in mind.

Facing a door that flaps on a rusty hinge

in any wind. By the time I let it go,

young is old and old is memory.

 

Todd Mercer was nominated for Best of the Net in 2018. Mercer won 1st, 2nd & 3rd place of the Kent County Dyer-Ives Poetry Prizes and the won Grand Rapids Festival Flash Fiction Prize. His digital chapbook Life-wish Maintenance is posted at Right Hand Pointing. Recent work appears in: Leaves of Ink, The Pangolin Review. Postcard Poems and Prose, Praxis and Soft Cartel.

 

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JOAN MICHELSON

 

Artist and Mother, Poland, 1950s

 

He paints the two together, close-up stills.

They’re in a space that’s white and has no form,

 

a join of earth to sky, or air that’s blind,

or light alive without a tint. The woman

 

is in her prime. The child, who grows to be

a man, lives on in time. Although they had

 

fourteen years together, on his canvas,

always one of them is dead. For death,

 

greys with blue, for life, fire-reds.

Here’s the mother, blue blue flesh

 

in silky thin-strap, shroud-like dress.

The boy in tiger stripes, is red, flame-red.

 

And fierce with want. She’s on her back.

Holding to her hips, he’s pressing his face

 

deep into her body that cannot exist.

Although the dead cannot, she spreads her hand

 

against his back as if to pull him close.

Elsewhere, the reverse.

 

He’s a toddler and his skin is pale blue

while she, a woman ripe with fullness,

 

is bright red. Alive, she holds her child

by his hands, raises him to stand

 

and stretches out his pudgy blue arms.

Fixed on him, she gazes with the fierceness

 

of the boy who, living, hugged her hips.

This death-in-life coupling keeps repeating

 

until, about to end his live, the artist

paints his portrait. A lean young man

 

in dark-rimmed specs all but disappears

into the emptiness. In his hand, his palette.

 

Joan Michelson’s poetry books: The Family Kitchen, 2018, The Finishing Line Press, KY, Landing Stage, 2017, publication prize, SPM Publishers, UK, Bloomvale Home, 2016, Original Plus Chapbooks, Wales, 2016. Toward The Heliopause, 2011, and Into the Light, 2008, Poetic Matrix Press, CA. Joan grew up in the States and settled in London.

 

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KENNETH POBO

 

Misunderstanding

 

The guy in “The Raven” who heard

a bird saying “never more!”

got it wrong.  Yes, the bird did

 

come to his chamber door,

it did speak, but it said

“You’re a bore!” He misheard,

 

thought the bird was mocking him. 

The raven realized this man

was a yawn, so, after a few more

 

“You’re a bores” she flew away,

past Poe’s beautiful dead

Ulalume and Lenore, past

 

colleges where profs

seduce undergrads

or write essays nobody would 

 

ever read, and finally, up,

up to clouds, her dark feathers

a roof moving in mid-air.

 

Kenneth Pobo has a book of prose poems forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing House called The Antlantis Hit Parade.  Recent poems have appeared in: Brittle Star, Caesura, and First Literary Review—East. “Misunderstanding” first published in The Plum Ruby Review.

 

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ALEC SOLOMITA

 

Fatherhood

 

The trees in the sloped yard cringe

as Vince starts to barbecue again.

I always wanted a dad with a neat

workroom in the basement, tools

hanging in coherent rows. He pours

out the charcoal into the black circle.

The rumble is pleasing; I light a cigarette

way up on the porch, out of harm’s way.

“That’s enough!” cries my mother

as flight patterns of lighter fluid send

streaks of fire ’round the bare legs of my

little sister who knocks over the table

covered with raw hamburger and hot dogs.

The only thing worse is watching him

try to set up the Christmas tree.

 

Alec Solomita has published fiction in The Mississippi Review, Peacock, and The Adirondack Review, among other journals. His poetry has appeared in Literary Orphans, Driftwood Press, 3Elements Literary Review, and elsewhere. His chapbook, “Do Not Forsake Me,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2017. He lives in Massachusetts, USA.

 

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PAMELA SUMNERS

 

Long Division

 

A house divided by silence, they tell you, cannot stand,

but it has bricks and mortar enough, rattling sounds and

distorted hisses of boilers under those rotting eaves.

It’s landlocked, hemmed in by light-blocking neighbors

crammed so tight one whole side abjures windows.

You can plant caladiums by your dreary basement,

about all that thrives in the weary Chicago sediment.

It stands up well enough, is a tough old broad hauled

all the way to Oak Park on the backs of draft horses after

it outbreathed the tumult of limestone facades burping cinders

kicked up by Mrs. O’Leary’s maligned old heifer.

 

It must have been cabled to a dray on Austin or Division.

It doesn’t belong here, its egg-and-dart and bullseye,

makeshift Eastlake with a faint whiff of smoke I smell

when it likes a new paint, a fresh burnt offering to

the god of fire who spit it out in 1873.  I

make these improvements to sell it, and this house

rewards me because it likes that I am leaving it:

rewards me with smoke for the choices I made.

Its roof is the most steeply pitched in the whole town,

and it knows it, knows it doesn’t want its lot, sneers

at the bungalows all up and down the avenues.

It doesn’t know its place, or recalls its place too well.

The roof quarrels with the basement’s worst fears:

new baseboard heat of which the smoke does not approve,

dragging the sound reproof of unvapored silence.

 

I remember another steeply pitched roof, another house,

lavish in its aloneness, greedy in its sashweight windows.

A careless party guest, not knowing cats seek heights,

let her out.  You barely knew me then, hardly knew yourself,

but cat-coaxing, you clung to the chimney.  Years later I

asked you why you clambered up on that roof, made a

Tennessee Williams joke in that Indian Summer heat.

“I thought you could use some help.”  Roof, cat, you,

a puff of smoke from the grill—clinging to a chimney

that sometimes flung bricks from a great height—

unexpected help.  This is standing well enough.

 

 Pamela Sumners is a constitutional and civil rights lawyer from America's Deep South. Her work has appeared or been recognized by 20 journals or publishing houses in the U.S., UK, and Scotland. She now lives in St. Louis with her family, which includes three rescue hounds.

 

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