April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
After Iowa flood:
New shades of brown.
First shade of brown: dead grass
Brunettes giving up
Lying prone in parks.
Second shade of brown:
Outdoor metals
Prisoners of iron oxide
And empty museums.
Dark second skins grew and spread
Into scar tissue.
Third shade of brown: the enemy itself-
The Iowa River.
Now the color of
Everything that wasn’t supposed to be there.
A tree lay on its side: roots unable to grapple
Earth aid.
Brown: the color of death.
Smell is alive and well.
So much dankness. Which sounds like stank.
Being green is too much work.
The sun, so uncaring.
by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens is an emerging poet who was recently published in Issue #10 of Superstition Review and has poems forthcoming in Emerge Literary Journal , Red Savina Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and The Apeiron Review.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
mid century
novelty shifts the angle
of what passed for innovation
and libels the new millennium
in shades of modern avocado
and simple teak
what was a keen nostalgia
for an egg shaped elegance
and those clean primary
reds is now a blink
in the machinery of connection
a paper lantern nodding yellow
concessions to the exposed
beam of your adolescence
as if lighting up all that spent
relish will leave you no choice
but to lean into the pecan wood
console and lift the sound arm
to retire that wall of 33⅓
memos to yourself
track by track
Haunt Me
Half a century gone
and the Ouija board is still
uncertain. As if the whole
neighborhood of ghosts
traversed my geographic
map from outset to reason,
exiting its own expired alphabet.
Power of Attorney
I don’t think we should speak
until I can shore up my resolve
against the optimism that rides
me like a shadow, loots my own good
sense and folds a feeble charm
into my reply. This repudiation
is overdue, but what should ring
like iron truth pitched against your latest epic
fable falls to a silent incantation,
a hiss in the apparatus
of our conversation, a grace note harmony
to the myth you love to repeat.
That you now hold the lady in the tower
is new to both of us and though I cannot weave
her escape into any believable advantage, I see
now that you are a fairy come to defraud me
in both worlds and I must be Switzerland,
chilly, dispassionate and unarmed.
by Sara Clancy
Sara Clancy is from Philadelphia and graduated from the writer’s program at the University of Wisconsin long ago. Among other places, her poems have appeared in The Madison Review, The Smoking Poet, Untitled Country Review, Owen Wister Review, Pale Horse Review and Houseboat, where she was a featured poet. She lives in the Desert Southwest with her husband, their dog and a 21 year old goldfish named Darryl.
April 2013 | back-issues, fiction
You said you felt under the weather. I suggested soup and you replied tomato. Tomato with grilled cheese. While I blanched them, you put on Van Morrison and scrolled through my songs. You considered yourself an expert.
“You need to clean your music library. Doesn’t it annoy you? How do you know what you have, what you don’t have?”
I shrugged.
“Why don’t you at least keep the genres organized?” you pressed.
“Why put songs in boxes? Why label them?” I was being ornery.
“Angel Pop? What the hell is that? Rainy Day Rock? Sci-Fi? What kind of musical genres are these?” You sounded sick.
I shrugged. It was all downloaded. Some legally, some not. The music came from pretentious blogs and Russian websites and some place called torrent. Data mountains from Korea, Morocco, mouth-breathing basements.
“You know that’s stealing,” you lectured.
***
It was Veteran’s Day when we decided to call it quits. It was raining. We called it quits, whatever ‘it’ was. We had never labeled it.
“I can’t make you happy,” you said.
“I can’t give you anymore,” I said.
You got out of bed, even though you hate the rain. I started scrolling through the songs by genre.
Afropop, Avant Folk, Crossover, Death Electro, Ethnic, Forgiveness Rock, Future Roots, Gracenotes, Merengue, Mexican Summer, Noise, Progressive, Surge, Trip-Hop, Tropical.
I x’ed out. There was no use. You took everything and left me with a head cold.
by Sonya Bilocerkowycz
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
“Anything goes tonight, my girl. Come on,
have another. What are we here for, dear lady?
Copulation is the only philosophy and
carnival its enabler. If you promise
not to move I’ll get you another flute
of champagne. My dear, we can leave.
I know a charming place just behind
Hackescher Markt. This is Berlin, you know.”
A Pierrot sways against the door frame,
stares drunken desire, mouth bent
into predator’s disappointment,
leans over the railing and vomits the first half
of an unsuccessful night.
Endless festing before Ash Wednesday –
nights of excess. The windows drip
yellow light and blue notes.
A tall Columbine clatters down the stairs
wrapped in a cape made from starlight.
She is running now, her high heels impeding
a fast getaway, her tracks clearly visible
in the first snow. No taxis anywhere.
She slips and slides towards the snow-decked
fire hydrant, its plump little arms outstretched
in a gesture of expectation. As her head
cracks open like a ripe fruit broken,
her purse spills condoms and pepper spray.
The snow reddens around her face.
Very slowly she relaxes.
The best party ever.
by Rose Mary Boehm
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm, short-story and novel writer, copywriter, photographer and poet, now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels and a poetry collection (TANGENTS) have been published in the UK. Her latest poems have appeared – or are forthcoming – in US poetry reviews. Among others: Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Morgen Bailey, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Avatar, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck River Review, Boston Literary… For her photographs see: http://www.bilderboehm.blogspot.com/
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
She sits at the wheel pulling cold balls of clay
centering us on the bat, foot gently feeding the pedal
pressing out our densities, opening our centers
turning us into simple vessels
built for filling.
I want to be your favorite soup-bowl
a singing teapot.
But the world is still creating us—
glazing & firing us until we have no more water, or we give up
or until someone plucks us from the kiln saying,
“You, perfect little vessel, are just what I need.”
When that happens, you are no longer organic
no longer molding Earth: you are Art, capitol A.
That’s what I want to be so fucking bad
but I’ll settle for plate. I’ll sit permanently on your bathroom sink holding your soap.
I’m just tired of being only leather-tough
sick of the world forming & decorating & tattooing designs on me.
Please, just put me on the shelf. Cracked
blemished, unfinished—I want to be useful, I want to be a vessel
I want to know my name and practicality
I want to carry something for you.
by Jacob Collins-Wilson
Jacob Collins-Wilson, a high school English teacher, has had poetry published in Pathos Literary Magazine as well as a short essay published by 1 Bookshelf.
