2022

 

 

JANUARY CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

Gale Acuff, Marianne Brems, Frand De Canio, George Freek, Judith O’Connell Hoyer,

Todd Mercer, Maren O. Mitchell, Ronald Moran, Pesach Rotem,

Gant Tarbard, Rodney Wood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GALE ACUFF

 

I love Jesus but I don't adore Him

 

I tell my Sunday School teacher when 

class is finished and we're alone except

for Jesus and probably God and then

there's the Holy Ghost as well but she says

At least you love Him, that's a beginning

so for some reason I say In the be

-ginning was the Word and then she smiles so

I smile, too, then she says Go on home, Gale,

and we'll talk again next week so I say

Yes ma'am, goodbye, then she adds May God go

with you so I say Well, all right, then smile,

then she smiles, too, so I think this is love

better than for Jesus or His for us--one

day when I'm her age He'd better beware.

 

 

Nobody lives forever--we all die

 

is something I get at Sunday School once

a week and sticks with me the other six

so I don't really get a day of rest,

not even Saturdays, when I try hard

not to do a damn thing but have fun and

God keeps a day off only for Himself,

how would He like it if His folks made Him

go to church and Sunday School not only

every Sunday but Christmas and Easter,

Thanksgiving, too, what the Hell kind of

holidays don't set you free from sin

at least once a year--even Halloween

has Him though trick-or-treat sweetens it. There's

New Year's Eve but shit just starts all over.

 

 

Gale Acuff has published hundreds of poems in over a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry. He has taught university English in the US, China, and Palestine.

 

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MARIANNE BREMS

 

Without Silence

I pay attention when silence breaks through,

a triumph over cell phone halfalogues,

a win snatched from devices that clean,

a respite from the travel of large vehicles,

a reprieve from pushing things loudly into place.

 

In the march to accomplish,

to go places I think I need to be,

to make pieces of myself fit together,

silence erodes into the noise

that slows the unfolding of blossoms.

 

It’s easy to treat noise

with more noise

until all is the loudest car horn,

then wonder why

silence chooses to settle elsewhere.

 

Without it,

a door shuts that needs to stay open,

things that float sink slightly,

the colors before me

lack full crispness.

 

Marianne Brems’ two poetry chapbooks are Sliver of Change (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and Unsung Offerings (Finishing Line Press, 2021). Her poems have also appeared in literary journals including The Pangolin Review, Nightingale & Sparrow, The Sunlight Press, and The Tiny Seed Literary Journal. She lives and cycles in Northern California. Website: www.mariannebrems.com.

 

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FRANK DE CANIO

 

Music Primer  

 

It was a fantasie impromptu.

After well-tempered preludes in a flat

beside your lyric sweets

I came Bach with A Musical Offering

in your ear. Following afternoons

where I’d fawn, I played Merry Pranks

in the Knot Garden of your flaxen hair.

 

Soon, Claire de Lune

modulated to the tune

of honey-tongued Scheherazade

blowing on the Tsar’s Sultan.

 

Andante brilliante,

you fingered my ballade;

pizzicati, then glissandi,

with a necklace of roulades.

 

Soon, the singing Lark Ascending

to an operatic ending,

your virtuosic fingers plucked

arpeggiated chords across the throbbing

soundboard of my body.

 

Poco a poco, you sang arioso,

first sostenuto, then furioso.

Forte vivace! Sforzando! Crescendi,

capped for the claque with a thrilling

high C! Bravo! Bravo! A slow diminuendo.

Dolente. Then, after sad fermatas,

a cigarette and cup of tea.

 

Born & bred in New Jersey, Frank De Canio worked in New York City for many years. He loves music from Bach to Amy Winehouse. Shakespeare is his consolation, writing his hobby. He likes Dylan Thomas, John Keats, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, and Sylvia Plath as poets.

 

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GEORGE FREEK

 

The Imponderables (After Mei Yao Chen)

 

On this mountain hideaway,

the sun shines invitingly,

until it dies with the night.

A calm breeze hardly

stirs the river’s water.

Drunk, I stand in my doorway.

I hear the cry of an unseen bird,

and watch young squirrels romp

in their mindless games.

There’s no one to tell me

why my young wife died.

The stars look bright,

but they shed little light.

I watch a crow circle the sky.

He’s frustrated, searching

for carrion along the shore.

He lands in a distant tree.

His cry seems to mock me.

Does he know he will also die?

 

A Cold November Night (After Mei Yao Chen)

 

The moon, as always,

is silent. In its dim light,

dead leaves are falling.

I stare at mysteries in the air.

Clouds drift in pairs.

They might be lovers

going anywhere.

In the darkness I hear

the river flowing,

and I feel a sudden chill.

It will soon be snowing.

Like life and like people,

winters come and go.

I stare at my empty bed.

It’s been a year,

that you’ve been dead.

 

George Freek’s poem "Written At Blue Lake" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 

 

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JUDITH O’CONNELL HOYER

 

Easter Morning

                                                                                   

I go outside in my bathrobe

to collect colored Wiffle Balls,

pick violets that stretch across the lawn

yawning satisfaction,

purple and white ones my grandson ate.

I told him he could.

Inside it’s one step by land

ten by sea and I’m in the bedroom

reining in Paul Revere’s mare,

harvesting Mr. Potato Head’s lips and tongue,

ejecting the kinged and the cornered

from their playing field,

crating a green dinosaur

the size of a newborn,

when on the floor I spy with my little eye

a red die with four white pips -

so much depends on luck.

Now I’m vacuuming coconut

from the dining room rug,

gathering up yesterday’s jackets

and five fingered mittens -

things people leave behind,

like the ironstone platter

that endured an Atlantic crossing in 1844 -

the one soaking now in my kitchen sink.

I do what I can.

 

 

A Natural                                                                              

                                                                                     

In the driveway the ’55 Buick Special is still.

          My father down to an undershirt, khakis belted,

                   cuffs turned to the ankles, old brogues on asphalt.

From his neck swings a medal of the Virgin Mary.

          Nods to me crouching on top of the banking.

                   In a pail of lukewarm suds he drowns the large sponge.

Hauls the thing back up from the sea where it’s been

          hiding in the dark like a childhood memory.

                   Carries it heavy to the roof. Swabs the length of the car

back to front, front to back always returning to the source

          for more to soothe hood, glass, doors, fenders, bumpers,

                   hubcaps. Each lithe movement choreographed

to the sounds of water. All of it so like him.        

           After the hose-down, a reach for the chamois cloth

                    that drapes his back pocket.

I watch him make each bead of water vanish.

          Suddenly I recall winter days after playing outside

                    when he’d place one hand flat against my palm,

the other on the back side rubbing briskly

           until I felt the heat,

                   then he’d start on the other hand.

 

Judith O’Connell Hoyer’s 2017 chapbook Bits and Pieces Set Aside was nominated for a Massachusetts Book Award by the publisher of Finishing Line Press. Her full-length book Imagine That, is forthcoming from Future Cycle Press in March 2023. Her poems appear in publications that include CALYX, Cider Press Review, Southwest Review, The Moth Magazine, The New York Times Metropolitan Diary, and The Worcester Review among others.

 

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TODD MERCER

 

First Day of the Post-Sexton Era

 

After The Sexton died at labor in the cemetery he served

and they had a quiet funeral for him, his successor

shoveled the soil over and closed the sod seamlessly

as the man himself would do. So passes the torch

gravedigger pro to younger fellow pro. Before finishing

the new guy was struck by the likelihood that he’d be

on the other end of this situation one day, passed-on mentor

to a new generation, being tucked in for whatever duration

the long sleep turns out to be. The next Sexton

picked up on the unspoken expectations, the key nuances,

same as the obvious duties. He seemed well-suited

to it, the peculiar work that must be handled,

maintenance of park-like settings that aren’t parks

so much as places to set and grieve, and leave,

and travel back to see again. The next Sexton

said a little prayer for his predecessor. He wondered

if anyone out there is listening and understanding.

He said “Good luck, friend,” and went back

to his task, the next perfect patch of peeled-back grass.

 

Todd Mercer’s short collection, Ingenue, won the Celery City contest. His digital chapbook, Life-wish Maintenance is available for free at Right Hand Pointing. Recent work appears in Blink Ink, Friday Flash Fiction, and Six Sentences.

 

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MAREN O. MITCHELL

 

Orange, my-favorite-color,

 

child of yellow and red,

you layer in flame,

 

are flaunted by wild azaleas,

are the bane of carrot-topped redheads,

 

signs for safety,

and badge of monks’ illumination.

 

You bring blue into being,

embody joy I don’t want to just hear about,

 

just wish for,

but want to consume,

 

let expand

throughout suburb

 

and embattled ghetto,

grungy downtown of graceful cerebellum,

 

of visionary cerebrum—

all the neighborhoods of my brain,

 

into cloistered sunroom and studio,

hot kitchens

 

of the four chambers of my heart—

the in, the out, the in, the out—

 

until so magnified that naked

joy flowers from my eyes,

 

is witnessed by my words,

witches through my palms,

 

trumpets out my ears

and branches from my breath.

                            

Green

      for Max Mitchell

 

Plants blend light of sun with chlorophyll,

carbon dioxide and water to make glucose and oxygen.

 

Plants know why photoexcitation, what glycolysis,

when stomata, where grana,

 

while we observe, experiment, surmise,

name as we go—outsiders.

 

Without green, we would not know

when winter was waning,

 

when to let go of depression,

there would be no free blackberries to purple us,

 

no spinach for Popeye’s saving strength,

or basil to lift our tongues into second life,

 

no shade for hammocks or canoodling,

two of the most valuable uses of time,

 

no first-sin-by-apple.

There would be no honeysuckle to return to us

 

the perfume of our youth,

no 4-leaf clover to press and pocket for fickle luck,

 

the next-door-grass never greener,

envy only a myth,

 

no stick-built houses that breathe,

but hard stone, cold ice,

 

no paper to find its magic way into origami.

We would never feel the thin mystery of paper

 

alive with the easy flow of thoughts,

but with effort have to write on rock,

 

no mistakes permitted,

and pay exorbitant postage.

 

There would be no wings unfurled above

to pull us away from earth, to push us into flight

 

away from everything we know, into unknown,

but then, we would not be, without green.

 

Maren O. Mitchell’s poems appear in The Antigonish Review, Poetry East, The Comstock Review, Hotel Amerika, Tar River Poetry, POEM, The Cortland Review, Pedestal Magazine and Chiron Review. Two poems were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She lives with her husband in the mountains of Georgia, US.

 

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RONALD MORAN

 

The Van of Miracles

 

They are refreshing the smiles of teens

inside a huge customized van parked

in the recreation area of the most expensive

section of our modest subdivision.

 

On both sides of the van, the name of the company,

OrthoWhite Mobility, is detailed in pale pink caps,

and the line, Come in. Your smile begins here,

is etched on the two front doors.

Flyers distributed to every house in our subdivision

claim that trained and certified specialists

will transform your mouth into a beautiful smile

by applying their secret and special formula

(patent applied for) to your teeth.

 

As curious teens approach the van

they hear a soft, feminine voice telling them,

A smile is you and you are lovely, lovely

like the shell of a chambered nautilus.

 

 

Saturday Afternoon in March

 

It is Saturday afternoon, the worst time

                   of the

worst day in the week, when you live

                   by yourself,

 

no matter how long, and even if self-pity

                   mars

your thinking, it is still, at least, some true.

                   Enough said.

 

So my neighbor invites me over to watch

                   the playoffs

on TV, his a much better picture than mine

                   and I say,

 

Sure, I’ll bring the wine, which at 2:30

                   in the p.m.

neither of us wants to drink, just enough,

                    to loosen

 

our talk about basketball, how the playoffs

                   should

have been set up, not as they are, of course,

                   and even though               

 

we have differing views, antipodal, in fact,

                   we are

still friends on a March Saturday afternoon

                   that went

 

better than it could have, much better, in fact.

                   Please

don’t ask me who won or lost, or even who

                   played.

 

Ronald Moran lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina, USA.  His last six collections of poetry were published by Clemson University Press.

 

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PESACH ROTEM

 

The Stream of Consciousness

 

’Twas a day so fair, such as seldom is seen.

I said, “This is the day that the Lord hath made”

And my Beloved said, “Let us be glad and rejoice in it”

So we decided to go on a picnic.

 

We packed up a basket with cold chicken

And white wine

And a thermos full of coffee

And red red raspberries for dessert.

My Beloved packed her flute

And I my weed

And she her Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious

And I my Civilization and Its Discontents,

Should Reading Time come upon us.

 

We rambled through the mountain meadow

Animated with anemones,

Boisterous with blueberries,

And a lone hawk circled high above

As we arrived at the shimmering stream.

 

There was nobody near.

We were alone.

We were free.

We stripped off our clothes and jumped in.

The water so clear I could see all my toes

But could my toes, I wondered, see me?

 

I dove under the surface and watched a school of fish swim by.

I emerged and said, “I am frolicking in the stream”

And my Beloved kissed me on the cheek.

 

I dove under again and touched the smooth round stones on the bottom.

I emerged and said, “I am aware that I am frolicking in the stream”

And my Beloved kissed me on the lips.

 

I dove under again and caressed my Beloved’s pretty little ankles.

I emerged and said, “I am aware that I am aware that I am frolicking in the stream”

And my Beloved looked me in the eyes and said, “Who is this ‘I’ that purports to possess such powers of awareness?”

And I said, “It is I, your Own True Love, who is aware that I am aware that I am frolicking in the stream.”

And she said, “Is it you, my Own True Love, or is it the neurons inside your skull that are aware that you are aware that you are frolicking in the stream?”

And I said, “Oy vey iz mir, I’m getting a headache.”

 

So I sat up on the bank of the stream

And I rolled a joint

And I lit it

And I inhaled deeply

And I passed it to my Beloved

And she inhaled deeply

And she played her flute

And everything was illuminated

And the Stream of Consciousness flows eternal.

 

Ripple

       With thanks to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, the Grateful Dead, and Haim Watzman

 

“And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

            Genesis 1:2

 

I was walking

On the wooden footbridge

Over the marshes

In the Hula Nature Reserve

One late-summer Friday morning

When I looked down and saw a

Ripple in still water.

 

I was astonished.

 

What, I wondered, could it be?

What could produce a

Ripple in still water

When there is no pebble tossed

Nor wind to blow?

 

I pondered the question.

 

It must, I reckoned, be

The spirit of God

Moving upon the face of the water.

 

What else could it be,

Here,

In the African-Syrian Rift,

The crack in the Earth

Into which the Heavens

Pour their secrets,

 

And now,

In the month of Elul,

When the King is in the field

And the Divine Presence is accessible

To all who yearn to be touched by It?

 

I trembled in awe.

 

And a turtle poked his head up

From under the water

And grinned.

 

Pesach Rotem was born and raised in New York and now lives in Yodfat, Israel. He is a member of the Israel Association of Writers in English. His poem “Professor Hofstadter’s Brain” was nominated for a Best of the Net Award. “The Stream of Consciousness” first Published in Natural Bridge, 2016. “Ripple” was first published in Nine Mile Magazine, Fall 2018.

 

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GRANT TARBARD

 

The Sacrament of Falstaff

 

We sieve through our yellowing photographs,

curled at the tip like railway sandwiches

to see who is keeping what memory,

picking apart our conjoined lives like bread

loaves to feed the park birds. Do you want one

of me being Falstaff in the day ward?

Take all the pictures of yourself, you’ll be

an impression of a face I used to

love, machine printed as I see you typed

across my eyelids. Photographs aren’t made

with straight lines, they are a hugger-mugger

of half-truces, dancing with faked delight.

They are a way of seeing into the past,

a spiritual journey captured on film.

 

 

I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine

 

Separate the fractures of my day, I

pout a concert of birds between breaths as

an impassive whistle through gritted teeth.

I make my silence an amalgam of

feedback and teary-eyed sing-a-longs, a

mug of beer and a stick to bite down on.

I write these suicide sonnets, one a

day murmuring to the iPad screen, like

I owe a debt to a lost argument,

arrows ripping through a dead horse’s flesh.

Why do we bind meaning to this feeble

animation? We are all ghastly pith.

The answer to life is simply this; food

is either coming in or going out.

 

 

Tabernacle

 

She felt the grim maul of a surgeon's 

thumbs cat-eyed inside her, nodding out plum

feathers of gas and air. Wince the downy

hush of needle into spine, riddling pain

across the dispatches of her skin. We 

held hands as the tabernacle of her

contractions acquiesced to the point of

reward; one more God among many schemes.

In that Lilliputian room there occurred 

a transfiguration, your pink tissue 

origami’d, a forge making new breath,

I thought the world no longer belongs to 

us. And I was right, it just took decades 

for you to be just a rumour to me.

 

Grant Tarbard is the author of ‘Loneliness is the Machine that Drives the World’ (Platypus Press) and ‘Rosary of Ghosts’ (Indigo Dreams). His new pamphlet ‘This is the Carousel Mother Warned You About’ (Three Drops Press) and new collection ‘dog’ (Gatehouse Press) will be out this year.

 

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RODNEY WOOD

 

The Magic Band

 

Five of them on stage casting their magic

on the last date of their tour of the UK

playing the music of Captain Beefheart.

Only one of the original band is left

 

John “Drumbo” French, “bloody stupid name”

I heard a women behind me say but then

she didn't know the others members which

included Rockette, Antennae, Black Jew,

 

Indian Ink, Fossil, Mascara Snake,

Winged Eel, Marimba and Feelers Reebo.

John used to be the drummer but is now

on stage capturing the shamanism,

 

alchemy as well as the twitches,

growls, roars and howls of the good Captain.

What I don't know is why? In his memoir

John wrote he was screamed at, beaten up,

 

drugged, ridiculed, humiliated,

arrested, stolen from and thrown down

a half-flight of stairs by his employer.

Was this gig his pension or does he like

 

the adulation? I remember reading

the Captain was primal and deep as shit.

Well it was the 70's and everyone here

was a hippy or at least a sympathizer

 

but they're listening while I wool-gather,

as usual, thinking of everything but the music. 

I bite my lip to bring me back to the present

where Drumbo blows a kiss to a little girl

 

as he and the band bow and leave the stage,

before coming back for an encore

Dropout Boogie and even then I start

thinking of something else can I put

 

the chairs away in time to catch the bus?

Did I really think the band were weird?

So I have to see that on YouTube and thank you

fishbowldreaming for posting the gig online.

 

Rodney Wood lives in Farnborough, co-hosts the monthly Write Out Loud (Woking), is a stanza rep and is widely published in magazines. 

 

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