2017

 

 

 

NOVEMBER CONTRIBUTORS

 

 

Geoff Anderson, Christopher Barton, Stephen Cramer, Gareth Culshaw, Kim Fahner,

Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon, Russell Jones, Pratibha Kelapure, Ronald Moran, Julie Sampson,

Susan Castillo Street, Katerina Struncova

 

 

 

 

 

GEOFF ANDERSON

 

Horoscope for the Just Dead

 

“Scorpio, there’s nothing wrong with being a fond memory.”

            -Daily News Horoscopes

 

In your newspaper on your doorstep—

          can I call it that, still, your

 

          newspaper, your door—

even the advice belongs most to you.

 

I never read these things,

but I am curious what the stars

 

would have wanted.

          Pisces, avoid negative words;

 

          Leo, embrace family.

You said these were written

 

for anyone to find truth

nestled in the bark.

 

          Gemini, find quiet. Cancer,

          beware the unexpected.

 

At your screen door, a breeze

flutters through porch columns,

 

taking me back to summers

where I waited above a span

 

of railroad ties that stretched to

your locomotive down the tracks.

 

          Libra, you are in the middle.

          Taurus is the beacon.

 

You always loved the train,

how the destination crawled

 

out of the cornfields, under

collapsing wire fences

 

while you watched and felt

what the sun must feel

 

as she peeks over the hill

          Aries, today is for community.

 

          Virgo, think quality of life

before taking a closer look;

 

that sense of uncertainty

about what has changed

 

since the last trip. How little,

you said. How much.

 

Geoff Anderson curated Columbus, OH's first shows for mixed writers, The Other Box, and translation, Lingua Franca. He’s a Callaloo fellow, was nominated for Best of the Net, and his chapbook, Humming Dirges, won Paper Nautilus’s Debut Series (2017). He has work on Tinderbox, burntdistrict, District Lit, and www.andersongeoff.com

 

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CHRISTOPHER BARTON

 

Foxhole Lullaby

 

It starts with shovel on dirt.

 

Quick, piercing strokes –

don’t waste your energy on indecisive digging –

 

unfold the shovel’s head and listen to it sing,

the thwump of metal on earth –

 

don’t pile it too close. Don’t want the enemy

burying you alive with one easy push.

 

Then the silent interlude of breathing,

night’s waiting, in and out –

 

don’t forget to listen for breaths

that aren’t yours, don’t forget to look

 

for bodies that aren’t yours –

shoot every last one of ‘em.

 

Then listen, listen hard, listen like your breathing

depends on it, because it does.

 

One foot, two feet, make it deep enough to cower –

don’t want your helmet showing, or bam –

 

it’s six feet under, better make it six feet now –

is it comfortable, private?

          Good.

 

It ends with shovel and dirt.

 

 

Christopher Barton is from Temple, Texas, but he currently lives in Nacogdoches, Texas. He has had other work previously published in Gravel - https://www.gravelmag.com/. 

 

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STEPHEN CRAMER

 

Under Stars

 

When the blues

hexagon by hexagon

 

fill my chest,

 

my hive overflowing,

your glance comes to me 

 

as a foreign

 

tongue I want to spend

the rest of the night

 

learning. I like

 

the way guesswork

feels in my mouth,

 

the way my body is high-

 

jacked by a bassline,

but what am I to think

 

when the constellations

 

question each other

& they answer in silence?

 

The way the late-night sky

 

gone hyperbolic with light

cradles us makes me feel

 

like I’ve just entered

 

a sweepstakes for one.

Let’s wake up & say

 

That was exhausting.

Let’s never do that again,

           

          & I mean soon.

 

Stephen Cramer’s book Bone Music was the winner of the Louise Bogan Award, 2015 and is reviewed in this month’s issue.

 

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GARETH CULSHAW

 

The Fireplace

 

I will never forget that time

when the wind fell down

the chimney. The sky

had caved in someplace

and its contents fell into our

home. The winter’s ash

leapt for cover, and the noise

carried on into the hallway.

The wind itself hit our shins

and shivered our skin

like a breeze over a sea.

We should have known

there and then, that the fireplace

was an usher.

 

 

I Will Tilt My Ears to Listen

 

The owl will be gone.

Her call into the night

that cracks the light

and makes it pop out

in star shaped forms.

Those eyes that pierce

my every step in the wood.

Her feathers that hang

around her body. And the

claws, twitch to catch

the movement of darkness,

in case the night itself,

wants to run away to the sun.

I will try and listen

from the new garden,

tilt my ears to the moon.

Let her calls slice away

the darkness within.

 

Gareth Culshaw lives in Wales. He has his first collection out in 2018 by futurecycle.

 

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KIM FAHNER

 

These things that remind me

 

This silverfish slithers

along the ledge

of a rental cottage

medicine cabinet,

from left to right,

in proper form,

as if it knows where

it is headed: certain.

 

Silverfish, so I think of

my grandmother’s change purse,

with knotted clasp, and how it closed

with sharp snapping sounds,

full of her silver, nickels and dimes, jingling;

and then, of stretch marks that

etch themselves in mercury swirls,

mapping out a body that has

gained and lost weight,

that has extended itself

and then shrunk, a constant

shifting and remaking of self;

and then, of crescent and half moons

hung high in the night sky, ornaments

that are ancient and prophetic.

 

Kim Fahner is the fourth poet laureate of the City of Greater Sudbury, in Ontario, Canada, and the first woman appointed to the role since its inception. She has published four books of poems, including her latest, Some Other Sky (Black Moss Press, 2017). She blogs regularly at The Republic of Poetry at www.kimfahner.wordpress.com and her website is  www.kimfahner.com

 

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CEINWEN E. CARIAD HAYDON

 

View from the Street (after Baudelaire “The Windows”)

 

My mistress’s black cat,
I press my nose to the pane unseen.

 

The shadows from her eyelashes fret her cheeks
He discerns nothing of her face
and continues to read his newspaper.

 

Two goblets of wine throw claret shades

on the low table between them.

Carved snakes coil in the wood.

 

His glass is empty, streaked with dregs.

Hers is full, untouched.

and her tiny resistance irks him.

 

He reaches for a bottle warming by the fire

and refills his drink.

 

He shakes out his paper

and goes back to study

the marks and mayhem men make in the world.

 

Her gaze is always unmet.
Her shoulders slump

 

Later I will warm her feet.

 

Ceinwen E. Cariad Haydon lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and writes short stories and poetry. She has been published on internet sites and in print. She has just completed her MA in Creative Writing (Newcastle University). She believes everyone’s voice counts. She intends to grow old disgracefully.

 

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RUSSELL JONES

 

Milk

 

My girlfriend doesn't believe

that where I'm from, the milk

is still delivered by the man.

 

In winter, I told her, you had to be quick

or find the bottles broken, the milk

frozen, eat dry muesli for breakfast.

 

In summer, I said, the sun set

the milk to sour yoghurt. Curdled

off-white, like baby vomit.

 

And we'd always watch for magpies,

who took the foil for their treasuries

and drank the cream.

 

My girlfriend opens the fridge,

says those places don’t exist anymore, pours

herself a bright white glass, and drinks.

 

Russell Jones is an Edinburgh-based writer and editor. He has published four collections of poetry, and has edited two writing anthologies. He is deputy editor of Shoreline of Infinity, a science fiction magazine. Russell also writes stories for Disney and YA novels. He has a PhD in Creative Writing.

 

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PRATIBHA KELAPURE

 

The Day and Night Under the Banyan

 

I

 

In front of the temple the loud rustle of banyan leaves

Children swing from the aerial roots, jump and squeal

Women go around the trunk with vermilion thread

Dutifully praying for the eternal life for their husbands

 

All through the day the persistent pealing of temple bell

Grandmothers feed the children homemade bread

Dole out the cold remedies and recite stories of

Neighborhood feuds and scandalous spinsters

 

The pride and joy of wedded women on full display

Hugging the sons, flaunting a measure of success

Others nurse a nagging dread of being the barren one

Worse yet bearing a daughter or two, even worse yet…

 

II

 

Murmur of leaves under the sprawling banyan tree

Crows gaze, some fitful whistles from a mynah

Sleeping villagers surrounded by still landscape

She emerges from behind the massive trunk

 

Pulls the folds of her sari together as tears and

Dishonor flow from her eyes hope draining away

The ripples on the river shimmer under the stars

She recognizes the invitation to become the flotsam

 

Along with driftwood and yesterday’s temple flowers

She considers it for a moment and then pushes away

The shame and tosses it towards the men where it belongs

The village officers running away under the cloak of darkness

 

 

Making Phulkas

 

She mixes flour, salt, and oil in the wide rimmed paraat,

with a pinch of her discontent thrown in for good measure

 

She slowly sprinkles water and blends the concoction

wipes her sweaty brow as if to brush away her cares

 

Strength flows from her shoulders through the wrist and the folded fist

She kneads the dough turning the unruly flour into a pliant ball

 

Later in the morning swaddled in humidity

she lights the gas stove; flame flickers in the windowless kitchen

 

Ceiling fan whirrs in the living room blowing gale-sized winds where

father flips through the newspaper; she makes a point to read the headlines

 

Her hands move lightly on the rolling pin; the sprinkles of flour slide

down the raised board like her wilting dreams

 

The flattened dough balls spread into the circles as her mind travels

her face glistening with sweat her heart hoping waiting

 

for the afternoon lull when she can read the stale newspaper and

crack open the library copy of A Room of One’s Own

 

Pratibha Kelapure is the editor of The Literary Nest, an online magazine of fiction and poetry. Her poems have appeared in The Lake, One Sentence Poems, Sugar Mule Literary Magazine, Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv, and many others.

 

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RONALD MORAN

 

A Miracle in the Dark

 

This is why.  In the last lap of Jane's run

                        toward

death, as our son was returning home

                        to Georgia,

she woke from her nap––far more quickly

                        than usual––

 

sat up straight and asked me, Where's Wes?

                         I told her,

He's in his car to go home.  She jumped

                        out of bed,

ran down the hall to the front door, then,

                        still running,

 

tripped over two brick steps, flew head first

                        onto

a concrete sidewalk, leaving no marks on

                        her body. 

Years later, I wonder why animals have eyes,

                        a nose,

 

and a mouth like us?  Not at all like aliens

                        imagined

in saucers like complex Frisbees hovering

                        over

deserts or Central America, their only cargo

                        transparencies

 

capable of surviving in our oxygen rich

                        Earth;

so I believe in a plan, once set in motion,

                        we should

understand, whatever else we claim to be

                        true.

 

 

Ronald Moran lives in South Carolina. His poems have been published in Asheville Poetry Review, Commonweal, Connecticut Poetry Review, Louisiana Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Negative Capability, North American Review, Northwest Review, South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, Southern Review, Tar River Poetry, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and in thirteen books/chapbooks of poetry. He was inducted into Clemson University's inaugural AAH Hall of Fame earlier this year.

 

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JULIE SAMPSON

 

Otterton High Summer

 

We in this gallimaufry of green

 

knowing we cannot escape

the many headed hydra's fumed churning of the befuddled lanes,

walk,

   watch,

      wait,

for thoserootedinourpast

whooncewerehere

to throw up a sign -

   striking a flash of Roman coin,

   or transformative shard of flint

from the river valley's unsettled greensand beds.

You with the iPhone fixed on a mesmeric text

 

who do not yet know

how this hotel will go

the  sapling Oak you don't see

by the window will grow,

that what we think as still

is not so -

 

oh yes, in case you ask,

I was once the same

until somebody in the past

called up,

said

 

You with your head stuck

in a book

learning how to read the text

who do not know

how the green fields you don't see outside the window

will go

your friends

will grow a

way from you,

that what we believe to be still

is not so -

 

oh yes,

I was once the same

until someone from the past

called up

said

You ...

 

Julie Sampson's poetry is widely published, most recently, or forthcoming, in Shearsman, Molly Bloom, Allegro, Dawntreader, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Journal, Noon , Poetry Space and Algebra of Owls. Her poetry collection Tessitura was published in 2014 (Shearsman). See https://www.juliesampson.com/

 

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SUSAN CASTILLO STREET

 

Trove

 

Clearing my mother’s house,

I empty out her handbag, find

 

a tasseled cigarette,

a lipstick labeled Fire and Ice,

a steno pad with cryptic scrawls

a photograph of me aged five

 

a tissue blotted with a kiss.

 

 

Palimpsest

 

The old Greek gods are written

in our sinews, sing in our blood.

Our lips draw tight in Cupid bows.

Our eyes hold rainbow Irises.

 

Atop our spine, the Atlas vertebra

holds up our weighty skull, globe balanced

on a butterfly of bone. Below, the mount of Venus

rises resplendent, conceals Hymen’s shielded door.

 

Achilles heeled, we think we’re armed against it all,

fire our arrows, garland ourselves in light,

climb peaks, think that the gods

will never let us fall.

 

Susan Castillo Street has published two collections of poems, The Candlewoman's Trade (2003), Abiding Chemistry, (2015), and a pamphlet, Constellations (2016), with a third collection, The Gun-Runner's Daughter to be published in 2018. . Her poetry has appeared in Southern Quarterly, Prole, The High Window, Ink Sweat & Tears, Messages in a Bottle, The Missing Slate, Clear Poetry, Three Drops from a Cauldron, Foliate Oak, The Yellow Chair Review, Poetry Shed, and other journals and anthologies.

 

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KATERINA STRUNCOVA

 

The Universe

 

Physics and scientists 
Derive their theories 
On chalky equations 
Leaking from brains 
Onto boards of hours of work 
In seconds wiped 
By water and a sponge 
Retracting their words 
If being in the wrong 
Later expanding them 
As a triumph of sort 
As the Universe! 

Physics and scientists 
In their black holes 
Annihilate time and life 
Dot dot dot 
Entities of no matter 
Yet present and ticking 
Like two bombs 
Enticing explosions 
But never going off 
Luring the surrounds 
The planets the whole lot 
Into their gravitational 
Destructive throats 

Physics and scientists 
Scratching their beards 
Downing beers and 
Packets of crisps 
Draw galaxies as oval 
Trajectories 
Visible to telescopes 
Yet their histories 
Remain pools of mysteries 
Suspending the motto of Socrates 
'Knowing nothing' 
All inclusive 
Except the bang mounting to 
An educated guess

 

 

The reason for writing poetry is purely connected to Katerina Struncova´s interest in the English language, which she studied at Masaryk University in Brno where she qualified as an English teacher last year. She does not teach, but lives and works in England as a trainee dental nurse. She considers teaching in the future, and aspires to become a hygienist. Some of her poems have been published by the Write Launch and Chantwood magazine available online. 

 

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