2016

 

 

 

MARCH CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

 

Marilyn Rauch Cavicchia, Zelda Chappel, Iulia Gherghei, Laura M. Kaminski,

 Donal Mahoney, Jennifer Met, Michael Minassian, Tammy Robacker, Bruce Sagar,

Jane Schulman, Fiona Sinclair, J. R. Solonche, Rodney Torreson

 

 

 

 

 

MARILYN RAUCH CAVICCHIA

 

Pear Wife

In the darkness, in a corner of the bedroom,
a single pear grows, and no one knows why.

Under the covers, you and I find ways
to ignore it; still, I know it is now six feet tall,

casting its shadow up the wall, onto the ceiling,
blocking the light fixture that, like us, pretends

not to see the humped, rounded shape growing,
the green-yellow sunspotted skin, russeted, russeted

in a way that I am not, never was. Someday,
I know, the pear will approach our bedside,

 

large with juice. You will leave with your pear

wife, have pumpkin-headed children,

while I lie here alone, in sheets as smooth
as buttery white flesh.

 

Spice Rack

Oregano

Grown in the joyful yam-colored foothills of Oregon. Shout its name,
in the manner of the early colonists, and see if it comes back to you.

Garlic

As a flavoring, it has no equal. It has been to clam dip and back.
A little goes a long way, gathers itself, and then comes home.

Black Pepper

As old as the tides, as valuable as those, and as sharply aromatic.
Sprinkle pepper at your next masquerade ball to undress your guests.

Bay Leaves

Put one under your tongue and your most prosaic speech becomes
a bouquet garni.  Whisper to me your story of cooking water and bouillon.

Cinnamon

It lists to one side and then the other, a sizzling dream of casserole
and potpourri, a con carne applesauce that talks and talks and talks.

Mustard

Not the hot dog kind in the sunny yellow barrel but the dry, powdery kind
to sprinkle on steaks or add to cookies and be better than the rest of us.

 

Marilyn Rauch Cavicchia lives in Chicago, where she is an editor at the American Bar Association. Her first chapbook, Secret Rivers, was published by Evening Street Press and received their Helen Kay Chapbook Prize. Other publications in which her poems have appeared include: Medical Journal of Australia, THEMA, Sugared Water, and Cider Press Review. Marilyn blogs at  www.marilyncavicchia.com.

 

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ZELDA CHAPPEL

 

Austerity

 

East. The ground muffles the sounds of us

as we flatten it, lets sky flood in, overtake us.

 

Salt preserves moments of us like evidence

to be used later. Back then I was weak-shelled.

 

Now I've learnt to fill my hollowed bones

with flight, leave you whimpering dull cries

 

into fur. You once made knuckles of my spine

unknowingly and now they won't fold back.

 

I lost my sight in those woods. It was something

in you stealing words from eyes as I read.

 

We blamed ourselves for forgetting. Now I miss

the sudden shift in air—late August, overripe.

 

We know hunger, its fear like suffocation—

I keep praying they'll never ration the sky.

 

 

Universal Order

 

Every part of ourselves is in that sky between Dungeness

and Romney, gaping. We transcribe our stories in delirium.

 

Our cells keep locking, micro to macro, rely on calculation

to make our shapes. We are formed, fit reduced to geometry.

 

We carry an unnameable weight. Put it down and our flotsam

is a chaos wasting in grit. We wait for tides to be immersed in

 

sometimes it can be months. We are often chaste. We forget

light can be so dank as well as vast, make our own charts

 

for navigation, never quite complete them. We keep watch

for birds gathering up our words, going South, nesting.

 

 

Zelda Chappel would be an intrepid explorer if money and courage allowed.  Instead, she writes, often on the backs of things.  Her work can be found in several publications both online and in print.  Her debut collection, The Girl in the Dog-tooth Coat, was published by Bare Fiction, July 2015.

 

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IULIA GHERGHEI

 

Portrait of a porcelain silhouette

 

She is coming.... She is finally making her appearance 
Her boys are running 
Opening her way
Her dress, her walk 
They all are saying
I am a powerful cat
A lioness hidden under a porcelain silhouette
We are waiting for her
To fill up the park with her joy
Charm and her sinuous perfume
A perfume that numbs wills
A perfume like a snake
Tempting with its stare the entire paradise
A perfume that stays with you long
After Noah's flood has passed
A perfume that makes you 
follow her steps in a trance
From afar you see her dancing hips
You hear her bracelets jingle

And wonder how jealous was God of Eve

 

 

capturing past in a poem

 

One of these mornings,
Crisp in their frost
Harsh in their glassy bite
One of these mornings, I say
I will glide on the frozen side walk
Testing my adherence to the ground
And maybe, just maybe
In the presence of this phony sun
All smiles, no heat at all
I will travel back time
In another winter
When my father and his friend 
Were pulling the sleigh with all of us 
Their daughters on
When at a turn we woke up in snow
Laughing like crazy
Breaking the winter demons
With our laughter

One of these mornings, I say...

 

Iulia Gherghei, Romanian poet, writing in English, published her début book, Prisoners of Cinema Paradiso, at blurb.com in 2012. In 2014 she received the" Poet of the Year" title on Destiny Poets site, run by Louis Kasatkin. In 2015 she won the Blackwater Poetry group contest with her poem "Lost in blue curtains".  She was part of many anthologies, The Significant Anthology, edited by Ampat Koshy was published in 2015.

 

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LAURA M. KAMINSKI

 

Until We Reach It

 

for Oluwasegun Romeo Oriogun, with heart-felt sympathy,

and Heath Brougher, with gratitude for showing me the way

 

I know the days when the shock-wave of grief

detonates in the marketplace where we, just some

few moments before, were browsing with a sense

of respite, a moment of accomplishment, of joy

 

that those things we do have been acknowledged

as having meaning for others beyond ourselves.

I know the days. I too have stood covered in dust

and ashes on such days, when tears unreleased

 

fill my head and rattle in my ears, monsoon rain

drumming the roof. I know the days. The calendar

is filled with them, a progression of remembering

those who have gone before me, gone untimely,

 

while I, who have no reason to expect more days

am left behind as scribe. But the last time I was

dancing my dead, growing tired of dancing

to the increasing silence, there was one who

 

snatched up the part of my heart that can hold

joy, elation – snatched it up from the sharp shards

of grief that slice my feet with mourning – ran

with it, rescued it without my realizing, treated it

 

as a treasure to be saved from smoke and burn,

ran ahead with it into the future, held it up high

above his head into the air so that my anguish

could not destroy it, held it there as if it were

 

a bird, and waited. Waited for me to begin to walk

forward through my mourning, my stumbling dance

of grief. Waited for me to catch up to the day. He

held the space of joy for me, rescued the elation

 

that I could not feel, kept it safe until I myself could

reach it, he let my heart rest upon his outstretched

hand until my joy became a fledgling, grew wings.

Younger brother, I know the days. And I know also,

 

having been shown how, to hold your heart aloft,

and keep it safe until you catch up to this place.

 

Laura M Kaminski grew up in Nigeria, went to school in New Orleans, and currently lives in rural Missouri. She is an Associate Editor at Right Hand Pointing. More about her poetry is available at www.arkofidentity.wordpress.com

 

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DONAL MAHONEY

 

Take Me to the Taxidermist

 

I told my wife the other night

when she came back to bed 

my feet were cold so now's 

the time for me to tell her  

not to bury me or burn me 

or give my body to science.

 

Take me to the taxidermist 

and have him dress me in  

Cary Grant's tuxedo, a pair 

of patent leather shoes

from Fred Astaire and a 

straw hat from Chevalier.

 

Once I'm a Hollywood star, 

stand me in the garden with 

that chorus line of blondes, 

brunettes and redheads 

I stationed there the day she

flew home to Mother in a snit.

Years later now, my dancers still 

kick high enough to lance the sun. 

I plan to hold a last rehearsal 

once my wife motors into town 

and finds a priest who'll say 

a thousand Masses for my soul.

 

Donal Mahoney has had work published in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

 

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JENNIFER MET

 

Picture Of Motherhood

 

what is that

my daughter asks

just glancing

 

the blue body bags

lining the gym

as the laptop closes

 

what was that

first instinct

that answered

 

nothing

it’s nothing

let’s go

 

make lunch

even though I knew

the schoolchildren

 

picked up

by their mothers

before the tsunami

 

were the children

no one ever saw

again

 

 

The Namazu

 

from the winter mud

a gigantic catfish stirs—

I had thought him dead

 

locked below Kashima’s ice

the water clearer than air

 

over storm grey lakes

the belted kingfisher hunts—

a low passing cloud

 

rivers washing the bank clean

of the icy shores above

 

the drying earth cracks—

spider webs too fine to see

catching at my foot

 

his milk-white whiskers

tickling my bare ankles—

I lose my fish hook

 

to spring’s primordial depths

I tumble—laughing alone

 

frogs chirping loudly

in the pond’s mint green algae—

we stop for ice cream

 

where are my toes while I’m here

in my carrot patch’s weeds? 

 

last year’s fallen willow leaves

rubbed to graying antique lace

 

daffodils blooming—

the sun presses golden coins

against my closed lids

 

the full moon’s wide eye

over new lovers dancing—

a jealous guarding

 

of night and day—of wishing

forever further away

 

Jennifer Met lives in a small town in North Idaho, USA. Recent work has appeared in Gulf Stream, Zone 3, Juked, Apeiron Review, Sleet Magazine, Haibun Today, and elsewhere.  Recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize and winner of the Jovanovich Award, she is poetry reader for the Indianola Review.

 

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MICHAEL MINASSIAN

 

Early This Morning

 

Early this morning

I looked outside my window

and saw my friend, the poet,

emerge from the fog,

droplets of moisture

clinging to his face

like lost words

from an unwritten poem;

with his white hair and beard

he looked like Walt Whitman

wandering into the wrong century;

he stood for a while

and stared at my house

while I waited with my hand

poised on the front door,

but he turned away

and disappeared back

into the fog,

the shape of him

like a cloud drifting

into the morning’s news

trailing some fragment

of what he meant

to leave behind.

 

Michael Minassian lives in San Antonio, Texas. His poems have appeared  in such journals as The Aurorean, The Broken Plate, Exit 7, Poet Lore, and The Meadow. He is also the writer/producer of the pod cast series Eye On Literature.  Amsterdam Press published a chapbook of poems entitled The Arboriculturist in 2010.

 

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TAMMY ROBACKER

 

Stigmata

 

A man I dated once

insisted his woman pass

the three-diamond test.

Miraculous, sexy cutlet

 

gaps should always split

her open and shine light

between the thighs,

the ankles and knees.

 

Nothing tastes as good

as skinny feels. Parable

of the shamed woman

at the unwell. Then

 

the Hollywood girls act

all holy. Remember this:

Once on the lips, forever

on your hips—a church

 

deacon whispered deep

in my ear when I was 12.

Sin is apple-shaped.

Mine’s a pear. O Lord

 

of the thighs. Christ

of blood and whining.

This is his body: Eat it.

And Eve was tempted.

 

 

Hausfrau

 

Atop headless end

Tables lion-footed

 

My mother tragic-

Heroine caryatid

 

Lifting pleated lampshades

Shrouded in cellophane

 

Dark curio cabinets

Her greatest staging

 

Breakable smiling collection

Of Hummel figurines

 

Children locked away

In pastoral scenes

 

In tight arrangements

Of stiff-pillowed rooms

 

A Black Forest cuckoo

Still strikes through

 

Tammy Robacker won the 2015 Keystone Chapbook Prize for her manuscript, R. Her second poetry book Villain Songs is forthcoming with ELJ Publications in 2016. Tammy published her first collection of poetry, The Vicissitudes, in 2009 (Pearle Publications). Tammy's poetry has appeared in Menacing Hedge, Chiron Review, VoiceCatcher, Duende, So to Speak, Crab Creek Review, WomenArts, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. Tammy lives in Oregon. www.tammyrobacker.com

 

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BRUCE SAGAR

 

Poetry lesson

 

I am teaching Catie

how to express herself

in various writing styles.

 

I’ve explained that styles

are like clothing:

what works one day

might not work the next.

 

This morning I taught her

about poetry. Then

she taught me.

 

She taught me how a lamb

is just a cloud with legs.

 

 

Bruce Sager won the 2014 William Matthews Poetry Prize, selected by U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Past awards include the Harriss Poetry Prize and the Artscape Literary Arts Award. He is the author of several poetry collections, with new ones forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing and BrickHouse Books in late 2016.

 

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JANE SCHULMAN

 

Off The Moon Path

 

Here’s the dress I wore

on Juniper Ridge.  When

 

we met, light through pine threaded

gold and scarlet: I became

 

Helios, God of the Sun, who

scatters clouds and shadows.

 

For years I followed the moon,

eland slipping behind a cypress

 

when lions stalked, a sailor reefing

the mainsail at the captain’s bark.

 

But on Juniper Ridge my sun-self

rose gold and scarlet, never to set again.

 

 

All You Need

 

Another night kicking off blankets, heat

lightning. You look around the two-room trailer –

walls cracked, frayed braided rug, floor holes

stuffed with Brillo, a long long road

 

from the center-hall colonial you

and Billy fixed up, wide-planked oak floors

and knotty pine kitchen cabinets.

The view out back was to die for.

(white daffodils, that old magnolia.)

 

But, honey, you better forget

that house.  Forget those flowers

but never forget Billy twisting

your arm behind your back

until you both heard “Crack.”

 

Here’s where you are now –

with all you need.  Knife,

sandpaper, spackle.  You’ll

fill those holes in no time.

 

A gallon of paint, Summer Rose,

on the table, next to the six-pack of Bud.

 

 

Jane Schulman lives in New York City.  She writes poetry and short stories and works as a speech pathologist in a Brooklyn public school with autistic and multiply-disabled young children. Jane has been a featured poet in local venues and taught seniors to write their lives in poetry, fiction, and memoir

 

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FIONA SINCLAIR

 

Second Skins

 

If she could ask her mother?

It would be the two glamour coats.

Petable fox pelt; big bad wolf skin.

Clever girl milked, on a never ending promise,

from admirers with fantasies of fucking her

in all fur coat and no knickers.

 

More prudent to have got them to stump up

for bills that hammered on the door after dad died.

As for getting a job, she soon found no employer

could imagine Elizabeth Taylor selling sweaters.

Anyway no space for work, when her moral compass

was thrown right off by magnetic pole meeting with married man.

Losing her way, she had to slosh shag rag tag men then

in order to bank role the affair.

 

Ten years later when he hit and run ended it,

her booze bloated body meant

jackets tethered in wardrobe’s depths.

Final days letting cancer have its wicked way with her,

croaked commands for daughter to psycho shred them,

despite wincing at each bread knife slash,

she remained adamant that no other woman would enjoy .

 

  

 Fiona Sinclair's first full collection of poetry, Ladies Who Lunch was published by Lapwing Press in September, 2014. She is the editor of the on-line poetry magazine Message in a Bottle.

 

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J. R. SOLONCHE

 

A Woman With Her Elderly Mother

 

A woman with her

elderly mother

parks her car

next to mine,

so I hold the door

for the old woman

as she gets out

with her cane.

She doesn’t thank me,

the old lady,

who must be

close to ninety

or even more.

It doesn’t pay

to get old,

is all she says,

looking up at me

as I hold the door,

her eyes as clear,

as open as the sky,

all the way up, all

the way.

 

 

Parking Lot Poem

 

So here I am in the parking

lot of the shopping mall,

the fourth best place to write

a poem, after the garret in

the hotel on Montmartre,

after the round tower

of the medieval castle on

the Irish coast, after any prison

cell anywhere. It is a big

parking lot, and the sky over

it is a big sky, big as a continent

with its own mountains and

cities and rivers and plains

of cloudy wheat. The sky

is bigger than the sky you

would see from the garret,

from the tower, from

any prison cell anywhere.

 

 

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.

 

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RODNEY TORRESON

 

"No Crime," Barked the Officer,

"Has Been Reported"

 

when I phoned the police

to inform them that all morning

at work I'd been worrying

about what I saw across the alley

after parking my car

in a lot near the intersection

of Michigan & Division: at 7:35 a.m.

and running from my

left to my right at a speed

that seemed Olympian

a square-jawed man, maybe

mid-twenties, a few yards from me

in a plaid polo shirt and tan slacks, running

with synchronized pumping

of his arms from the direction

of a dorm for nursing students,

looking straight ahead as he ran, in his

brown oxfords leaping over—

without even once missing his stride—

two chain link fences

each about five-feet high and

maybe forty-feet apart and still

running when I lost sight of him

among two vans and a truck turning

a corner in turning shadows

left over from the night.

 

 

The poet laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan from 2007-2010, Rodney Torreson is the author of four books, his most recent being The Secrets of Fieldwork, a chapbook of poems published by Finishingline Press in 2010.  His two full-length books are A Breathable Light (New Issues Press) and The Ripening of Pinstripes: Called-Shots on the New York Yankees (Story Line Press).  

 

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