October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
The ticks I pick from your flesh
have the verve of John Donne’s flea
but much more adhesive
with the fervor of Lyme Disease.
The garden’s a death trap,
the primrose and forget-me-nots
funereal and dungeon-breathed.
Spreading composed mulch to conceal
the yawn of a hundred open graves
I tire of myself and slacken
almost enough to lie down
and allow the grubs to engage me
in their shy waxen petulance.
Meanwhile in pale innocence
you punctuate yourself with ticks
by kneeling to yank the weeds
eager to elbow out the flowers.
Something about our seasonal
bloodletting lingers. Sprains,
torn tendons, even broken wrists
spike the long dark winters. Blackflies
riot in spring, summer features
splinters from stacking firewood
to season before the cold arrives.
But the ticks linger all year long—
their hard metal bodies, springy
eight legs, driven by blood-thirst
ripe as a rage for celebrity.
Arachnids, not insects, they deploy
their motivation so adroitly
we feel them crawling through our sleep.
In the north, they gang up on moose
and kill with a quarter million
individual nibbles per pelt.
They stick to us both, but lately
you’ve been sporting them the way
ex-smokers sport nicotine patches
on parts of the body that matter.
I flush them into our septic tank
where they probably thrive and plot
a future so bloody no one
but ticks will survive, draining
the blush of sunset to leave
a fog-gray landscape writhing.
by William Doreski
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
She believes the snow is a mirror
Turned upwards toward her face,
A catalyst for the frigid light
Burning in the old, dappled pines.
She believes that love
Is one or two canoes
Drifting in soft degrees
Over dark, polished waters.
She believes the young boy
Carrying his notebook beneath her shadow
Is a lost star following home
Her wintry beckons.
She believes we will one day remember
Her cold serious heartbeat,
Sending up bright untethered rockets
She pretends are prayers.
by Seth Jani
Seth Jani currently resides in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress (www.sevencirclepress.com). His own work has appeared throughout the small press in such places as The Foundling Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, Hawai`i Pacific Review, Gingerbread House and Gravel. More about him and his work can be found at www.sethjani.com.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
When war draws people into positions
Where they face the unfaceable
Tired after toiling or driven to their demise
Outpacing the wish for life
When mortality has no returns
Beyond reluctant excitement
And fear of terror erupts
Tightening chest and claustrophobing tranquility
Until patience runs out and death or revolt become options
And anxiety reaches in to squeeze your heart like a loving octopus
That might just take your life
Away from you
by Josef Krebs
Josef Krebs’ poetry appears in Agenda, Bicycle Review, Calliope, Mouse Tales Press, The Corner Club Press, and The FictionWeek Literary Review. He’s written three novels, five screenplays, and a book of poetry. His film was successfully screened at Santa Cruz and Short Film Corner of Cannes film festivals. The past 5 years He’s been working as a freelance writer for Sound&Vision having previously worked at the magazine fulltime for 15 years as a staff writer and editor.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Her first word was material.
The adults wondered why she skipped
all the warm-up words like mama and daddy.
So odd, they commented.
Why did that word emerge first
from the buttery spread of childhood?
Her home smelled like codfish balls and beer.
The Mona Lisa, torn from a magazine,
hung on a wall.
Pickpockets and drunks stopped by
while her uncle looked for coins on the sidewalk.
Her other uncle worked nights as a jailer.
He locked up family members as a joke.
Her grandmother had no teeth.
Her aunt thought Jell-O was alive.
When the girl grew up, she seldom uttered the word material.
She did not build things or sew things.
She lived simply and was not materialistic.
Maybe as a child she knew that her family would provide
colorful material for her stories.
Maybe her first word was a warning to them to behave.
by Suzanne O’Connell
Suzanne O’Connell lives in Los Angeles where she is a poet and a clinical social worker. Her work can be found in Forge, Atlanta Review, Blue Lake Review, Crack The Spine, The Manhattanville Review, G.W. Review, Reed Magazine, The Griffin, Sanskrit, Permafrost, Foliate Oak, Talking River, Organs of Vision and Speech Literary Magazine, Willow Review, The Tower Journal, Thin Air Magazine, Mas Tequila Review, The Evansville Review, The Round, Serving House Journal, Poetry Super Highway, poeticdiversity, Fre&D, The Tower Journal, Silver Birch Press, The Louisville Review, Lummox Press, The Four Seasons Anthology, and Licking River Review. She was a recipient of Willow Review’s annual award for 2014 for her poem “Purple Summers.” She is a member of Jack Grapes’ L.A. Poets and Writers Collective.
October 2015 | back-issues, poetry
We’re fading mirages spent
by father times lease.
As we wait to balloon
to the neon sky,
In a haze,
day after day,
from twilights
dawning depths;
the sunrise bakes.
The slumbering horizon
awaits remnants
of earths scattered
souls to reunite with us.
When antiquity phones,
this world will yawn,
and it’s inhabitants
will slip into
their dormancy;
You slip into your
time capsule ruin
underneath the soil.
No matter what,
you’re a limited
release casted
by the tar cloaked angel.
You order your silhouette
to waltz back into
the atmosphere;
but in the end,
we’ll still be
drinking our dust.
by Chris Ozog
Christopher Ozog is a 23 year old writer who resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His work has previously appeared in Burningword Literary Journal, The Commonline, and Crack the Spine with work upcoming in Hello Horror.
