2016

 

 

 

NOVEMBER CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

 

Urvashi Bahuguna, CL Bledsoe, Mary Buchinger, David Butler, Marc Carver,

Seth Crook, Edilson Ferreira, D. Dina Freidman, Howie Good, Anna Maris,

Michael Marrotti, Mandy Mcdonald, Marie-Therese Taylor, Vivian Wagner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

URVASHI BAHUGUNA

 

Simmer

 

All that time we were writing each other 

back, when really I should have said: 

I turn all the lights off before I respond. 

 

I tentatively experiment with tea: if I pair

a split clove with cinnamon that rises

like driftwood, will it work? 

 

Sometimes being alone is so lovely

I cannot imagine ever having halved all things

with you. Someone told you to not learn

 

how to make tea, that you would always be

making someone else a cup. I should have

understood you were warning me: I could

 

not count on you. Any table we would share

would be catered by me. You would offer

what only needed to be poured. 

 

 

The good memory

 

In this one     you are washing hands     in the basin.

The sheets are twisted     into ropes     to wet & scrub

new stains.     A whirling pool     of pink sliding     

into drainhole.    You seem practiced     at the art of being

decent in a moment     that could go     either way. 

Let me begin     again. In this one     I do not know a protocol: 

never having bled     on a boy's sheets before.     You peel white

cloth off     the mattress. Laundry is too obvious     a solution to occur 

to me. The months     when my anger at you     keeps me awake, 

I try to remember     you like this: hunched over     a running faucet 

firmly tilting and     tilting cloth     till the water circles clean

looking back once     as if to remind me    this is ordinary. 

 

 

Urvashi Bahuguna's poems have been published or are forthcoming in Barely South Review, Jaggery Lit, Kitaab, Cadaverine, The Four Quarters Magazine and elsewhere. She currently lives and works in India. 

 

CL BLEDSOE

 

How to Be Sexy

 

Take off your shirt. Lean

against a brick wall, one leg cocked

like that’s comfortable, your back

probably bleeding. Don’t shave, but only

for a day, maybe just a few hours. Carry

a battery-powered fan. Conceal it

nearby at head level to lightly move

your hair as though you’re in an 80s rock

video. Ignore the chilliness, the slightly

itchy face. Be yourself, but not the self

that has driven everyone away up to this

point. Be yourself in leather pants.

But don’t bend over, or your true self

might slip out. Tell jokes that aren’t cries

for help or too intelligent or too dumb or,

actually, maybe don’t tell jokes. Be of use.

Surely, there’s something around here

that needs a lid removed, a screw

tightened, a concept everyone already

understands explained. Don’t lie but don’t

tell the truth; the truth is boring. Instead,

tell fables. Everybody loves fables.

Be sensitive but don’t tell her about the first

time you tried to kill yourself, even if it’s

a funny story. Remember what I said

about jokes. Don’t say your favorite

thing in the world is to not be in the world.

This is almost as boring as the truth. Listen

and remember what was said even if it’s

embarrassing. The story about the time

she peed her pants, farted in church, that

was the test. Pass it. In the end, sexiness

is in the eyes of the beholder, so you

should set up mirrors everywhere. 

 

 

CL Bledsoe is the author of a dozen books, most recently the poetry collection Riceland and the novel Man of Clay. He lives in northern Virginia, USA, with his daughter.

 

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MARY BUCHINGER

 

Rocío

And thread the Dews, all night, like Pearls—Emily Dickinson

 

Her name means abundant dew and she borrows an egg

a month from the family hen to nourish her rope of hair.

A seamstress, she works from pictures in the old issues

of Reader’s Digest and Better Homes & Gardens my mother

sends me, finds women’s fashion in stainless kitchen sink

 

and Jell-O ads. She measures me, again, again, and only then

cuts patterns from newspaper. New to this work, her mouth

full of pins, she is fifteen. I bring her yards of fabric—paisleys,

calicos—just to watch her eyes grow wide. In the parched

mountain town, she works in the hat shop beside her father,

 

the counter all hers to spread out fabric and paper. Five feet

away, he patches, clean and irons the panamas and bowlers

his customers bring him. Hats necessary as sun, as impervious

to fashion, last a lifetime here. While his daughter, Rocío,

threads her needle, prepares to stitch trends fleeting as dew.

 

 

Mary Buchinger is the author of Aerialist (2015) and Roomful of Sparrows (2008); her poems have appeared in AGNI, Salamander, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. She’s co-President of the New England Poetry Club, Cambridge Poetry Ambassador, and Professor of English and Communication Studies at MCPHS University; her website is www.MaryBuchinger.com.

 

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DAVID BUTLER

 

The Dogfish

The sea has thrown up a dogfish,
sandpaper-rough and dense as muscle;
a tough trial to the iridescent flies.

Outside the deaf-mute element
a parched wind filled with bird-shrieks
has begun a slow embalming.

Already it is eyeless. Small wonder
the child with bucket stands and stares
and starts to hear the song of sand;
the whisper in the hourglass.
  

Snow

Talc creaks underfoot.
It has earthed the light,
bruising the clouds to iodine.
Bandaged cars are labouring up
a road made unfamiliar.
Somewhere, a tree sneezes.

Our scalded hands can’t get enough
of compacting cotton.
Breath comes sharp as a newborn’s.
This is what new love is:
the world turned upside down;
a slap to the senses.
 

David Butler's inaugural collection, Via Crucis, was published by Doghouse in 2011. His second collection, All the Barbaric Glass, has been accepted for publication by Doire Press. “Snow” originally published in Poetry Ireland Review, 111, winter 2014.

 

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MARC CARVER

 

Unique

 

I walk out of Waterloo

I walk as slow as I can

and everybody swerves past me,

in a hurry to get back to their cardboard boxes

so they can shut the door

and pretend the world does not exist.

 

Later I walk up the Strand with a big cigar so people have to dodge me

and they get a big whiff of cigar smoke as they do.

I blow it in their faces as they pass and still I am in no rush.

 

I check the open air book stand at the South Bank.

It is mostly closed only me and a couple.

She picks up some books and turns to me.

"Can I take these?" She asks.

"Yea I am sure you can." I tell her.

We look at each other for a while.

"I am tempted to take your money." I say.

 

Later I meet a young lady

and she has the most perfect name in the world.

 

Marc Carver I watched a man cry on TV last night as he won the Booker. He tried to explain what writing was to him. I feel the same even though I will never win a prize in my life. Writing means everything to me and I am lucky enough to be able to write in the way that I want to and now and again people tell me that they like what I write.

 

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SETH CROOK

 

Seven Mondays with the Under Sheriff of Tobermory

Today my servant Mary was awkward,
   but still willing.
Saddlebags soaked.

Mary showing modest improvement.
   Crumb carpet arrived.
Emperor of Morocco dead.

All day at the small debts court.
   57 cases.  Rubber at whist.
Mary glum. New cushion torn.

Today, she was not thrifty.
   Unless there is amendment
she’ll be discharged on Whit Sunday.

Yesterday took tea
with the minister of Tiree.
Agreed, mostly.

Discharged Mary in the evening.
   “This situation is too much for you” I said,
she snivelling.

Two lunatics sent away by the morning steamer.
   I wonder what happened to Mary?
This new Glaswegian woman is far worse.
 

(Based on a copy of the diary of a mid-nineteenth century Under-Sheriff. Kept at the Ross of Mull Historical Centre, Isle of Mull, Scotland)

 

Seth Crook rarely leaves The Isle of Mull. His poems travel for him and have appeared this year in such places Northwords Now, Causeway, The Journal, Poetry Scotland, The Lighthouse, Antiphon and Raum. He is currently editor of the photography+photo section of the e-zine Fat Damsel

 

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EDILSON FERREIRA

 

A Poet’s Passions

 

I’m proud member of a certified sinners’ brotherhood,

those who are faithful vassals of moonlit nights,

arousing torrid passions on sweet ladies, sometimes    

sweet cute girls.   

I can never resist to every and any world’s beauties,

like a golden rose or a field’s daisy; also, in the summers,

by the afternoon, those corns’ ears pouring by the sun

its charmer blond hairs.

I love the plains and the mountains, the creeks flowing

till the rivers and seas, the birds crowning and cresting

above us -- attentive and loving sentinels –

I love the scarlet red sunset announcing the day’s end,

enchanting and bewitching the early evening. 

I love to run through far horizons discovering people

that help me to feed the fire I have been carrying, and,

along the way, inspire me to write some lyric sonnets.

 

 

Edilson Ferreira is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than Portuguese. Recent works have appeared in Red Wolf Journal, Right Hand Pointing, Creative Talents Unleashed (Featured Poet), Indiana Voice Journal, The Lake, Whispers, Dead Snakes, Algebra of Owls, The Bees are Dead, The Basil O’Flaherty (Featured Poet), among others. Ferreira lives in a small town (Formiga-MG), with wife, three sons and a granddaughter and, unhurried, is collecting his works for a forthcoming book. He began to write at age 66 (seven years ago), after retirement as a Bank Manager. Read some of his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.wordpress.com

 

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D. DINA FRIEDMAN

 

Dead Sea

 

Inert, it blisters brilliant blue

through five thousand thirsty years.

No one here but scattered tourists, sharp stones

that lead to the hopeless bottom of the world.

 

Test your toe, then let your ass drop.

Sink into salt, the sun a relentless riff

that never morphs to melody. Hope blows

in a hot cliché: Peace that never comes. Murmur

into the foam. Ask why

 

they call this random shore your home.

Not a hint of green. It’s all so blighted,

clean, like bones. Check

your burning skin. Don’t float

too far. The swell of tide might take you

all the way to Jordan.

 

Iceland

 

This is an island as I have been—rugged, competent,

lined by volcanic rock, sharp as blades.

There are holes in these cold stones, compressing

 

force, fervor, bubbled heat underneath.

Once, I climbed close to a lava flow, a hot day

in a hot country. Our guide thrust a stick

 

into the unsuspecting ground,

stirring up the pit of fire I wished I were.

We were warned our sneakers could be ruined

 

from the melting stones, to buy a cheap pair.

Today, crampons tether us to the ice. The guide’s axe

severs glacial crust, uncovering crevasses

 

deeper than the length of his rope. With each cut,

a gush of water, exuberant as the happy dog

in some movie where the husky was the hero

 

pulling the trapped man out with her teeth.

 

 

D. Dina Friedman has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and published many journals including Calyx, Kentucky Review, Bloodroot, Inkwell, Tsunami, The Sun, Anderbo, and Rhino. Dina is also the author of two young adult novels, Escaping Into the Night and Playing Dad’s Song.  She has an MFA from Lesley University. www.ddinafriedman.com.

 

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HOWIE GOOD

 

Road Through Midnight

 

The road through midnight

twists itself around the mountain,

springtime acrobatics,

especially when I’m wasted

and there’s no moon at all,

only the distant porch lights

of a few lonely houses,

the night so dark the deer

just seems to appear

and then leave me to the shadow

of every shining hour.

 

 

Hi Hat

 

I’m walking

along the beach

but my mind

is elsewhere

when a sun hat

whirls past

 

as if fleeing,

with the wind’s

connivance,

the tedium

of embellishing

a size 7½ head.

 

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely

 

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ANNA MARIS

 

(Life)
 

sunlight

on the bedroom wall

a new window

 

spring rain

an old letter

unfolded again

long shadows
after the siege has lifted
a lone crane
 

(Death)

empty beach
my ear to a conch
hears your whisper

winter’s bone
in the frozen footprints
fresh powder snow

 

she always

loved the blues

forget-me-not

(Etc)
 

open sky

the sea claims the sand

under my feet

high-speed train
along the railway line
wild apple trees

 

haiku

my father wonders

if that is all

 

 

Anna Maris is a Swedish haiku poet. Her latest (bilingual) poetry collection lifedeathetc/livdödetc is published by Red Moon Press in the USA. She has been awarded a number of awards and prizes for her poetry in Japan, USA, Romania, Poland and the United Kingdom. http://annamaris.wordpress.com

 

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MICHAEL MARROTTI

 

Have A Drink On Me

 

I've written

countless

poems about

my drunken

mother

 

They've worked

to diminish

the flame

of her 100 proof

habit

 

Now I've reached

the point where

the poems are

just as monotonous

as her belligerent

actions

 

Maybe if she

changed

the bottle

I could produce

something new

 

But she's stuck

in her ways

too old to change

there's not a priest

or program

that could remedy

this loss

 

Her health

is fleeting

courtesy

of vodka

as I have fled

her perpetual

abuse

 

My entire life

has been a

stitched up

wound

she continues

to rip open

 

Maybe I'll make

an appearance

this coming

Christmas

to give her

the bottle

she lives

to devour

 

The bottle

that has been

an enemy to me

for thirty-five

years and counting

may actually

turn out to be

my new friend

 

Michael Marrotti is an author from Pittsburgh, using words instead of violence to mitigate the suffering of life in a callous world of redundancy. His primary goal is to help other people. He considers poetry to be a form of philanthropy. When he's not writing, he's volunteering at the Light Of Life homeless shelter on a weekly basis. If you appreciate the man's work, please check out his book, F.D.A. Approved Poetry, available at Amazon.

 

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MANDY MACDONALD

 

A certain age

 

When you get to my age,
you will come in from the garden, instinctively,
to serve food, at the exact moment it is cooked

 

When you get to my age,
you will have forgotten half the books you ever read,
but you will have still more to discover

 

When you get to my age
you will be able to tell at a glance
which marriages will last, and which not --
or you will think you can

 

When you get to my age,
you will have learned the uses of patience, if you're lucky,
but also the joyous onrush of impatience

 

When you get to my age
they will accuse you of wisdom
but you will know you are guilty only of hoarding experience
in the right boxes

 

When you get to my age
the stars will seem so much closer on a brilliant night
that you may wonder when you will fly to join them

 

When you get to my age, little one,
the world I must leave to you
in all its beauty, hope and horror
will somewhere bear your handprint

 

Mandy Macdonald is an Australian writer living in Aberdeen, trying to make sense of the 21st century. Her poems appear in print and online, in Extraordinary Forms (Grey Hen Press, 2016), Poetry Scotland,  The Fat Damsel, Snakeskin, Triadae, and elsewhere. The rest of the time, she sings and plays music.

 

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MARIE-THERESE TAYLOR

 

Tiger Lily brings flowers

 

It’s not enough to thank her

at once you must

          find a vase

          sugar the water

          strip leaves from stems,

          snip at the ends for fresh cells to drink

clear out the sink

 

don’t mention pollen stains on your grandmother’s cloth

abort a sneeze there’s nothing to gain

by reminding her you are allergic to Lilies

 

her smile is lipped tight

she won’t offer to help

in spite of seeing the trouble

she’s brought

you meekly insist

          she shouldn’t have bothered - she really should not

then you cut - not your wrists

but a part of your self

and you are diminished

as you offer the gift of eternal service

before you are finished

 

Marie-Therese Taylor lives in Glasgow. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Northwords Now, The Glasgow Review of Books, Glasgow Women’s Library’s Mixing the Colours, Federation of Writers Scotland’s Soundwaves, Snare’s Nest, Nutshells and Nuggets,The Fat Damsel, Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis, and Open Mouse.

 

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VIVIAN WAGNER

 

Rich

 

Fired, clay becomes stone.

Water escapes,

organic matter burns off,

micro-feldspar fuses.

 

In southern Ohio

there’s a vein of clay so rich

people started backyard potteries,

digging the defrosting layer

as bluebirds returned each spring.

They made practical items,

bowls and plates and chamberpots,

their kilns fuelled by

hand-harvested timber,

hand-mined coal.

 

Later, Hull and Weller,

Roseville and McCoy

hired people off their land to make

orchid-painted vases,

gingerbread men cookie jars,

piggy banks, suited and tied.

 

In my own garden I dig clumps of soil

that dry to bricks in the kiln-hot sun.

It’s wealth that seems a burden, this clay.

It speaks of adamantine virtues.

It says, adapt to this kaoline earth.

It says, see what life you can create.

​

Progress

 

Inspired by “Skaters,” a 1940 post office mural by

Clyde Singer in New Concord, Ohio

 

it’s mainly about her skirt

  yellow with impulse

    and her hair, curlflowing back

      the way she leans toward

        the lake’s far side

          the way the other skaters witness

            her pushing forward

              nothing will stop her

                nothing can

 

​Vivian Wagner is an associate professor of English at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. Her work has appeared in The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Narratively, Creative Nonfiction, The Atlantic, and other publications. She's also the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel) and a poetry chapbook, The Village (forthcoming from Aldrich Press). Visit her website at http://www.vivianwagner.net./

 

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