October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Even now, as my fingers
Turn incised in time,
As my eyes fall upon
The dusting of artificial
Sweetener some careless
Hand forgot, I wonder
On the involute silence
Of empty space.
A never
Silent silence. Bespotted
Always with the stigmata
Of an omnipresent hum.
This hum is not unlike
The hum of industry
But for its source— its source
Lies hidden deep in the earth,
Or perhaps it originates
In my very skull.
This hum, this ceaseless
Murmuring, I think at times
To be existence itself
Sighing without end.
From here I can almost see
The opening doors and feet
And hands descending like
Locusts. Foreknowledge needs
Not prophesy. And I hear,
Now as then, the lingering hum
Deafening always and louder
Only in silence.
by Dan Pizappi
October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
The human voice,
a peculiar instrument
badly played by most
can produce beauty,
making us wonder
why so many
assault fragile ears.
by Gary Beck
October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
You need not fear the cold much longer;
the seasons of the world are changing,
they are structures collapsing
and will be gone by midnight
as if by tidal wave.
You see, the walls keeping things apart,
they won’t hold much longer.
Soon the sun will come to warm our bodies
ceaselessly year-round,
thus causing oceans of missed pleasure
to announce their presence
greeting us
tasting of winter
and smelling of soap.
They’ll begin by kissing our necks and nipples
and lap and lap against the shore,
returning ever steadily–
and yet, between sun and burning sand
there is space unlimited to grow.
by Jessica Lieberman
Jessica is currently studying poetry at Kenyon College. She has studied under Daniel Mark Epstein, Thomas Hawks, and Jennifer Clarvoe. She works as an intern for the Kenyon Review.
October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
The Missing Poet’s Lounge
In memoriam Weldon Kees and Lew Welch
In the missing poets’ lounge, a sad man
Tickles the piano, key by cold key,
Thinking, all the time, of his escape plan.
He spreads his long fingers into a fan,
Drops a chord, exhales smoke. He wants to see
What he’s missing. Poet’s lounge, young sad men
Looking too cool. One watched since he began
Playing. He snapped his fingers far too quickly,
Thinking in double time. He had his own plan
For getting out, he knew. The second hand
Ticks loud. He strikes a note. Could all these be
Missing poets? The lounge seemed sad. Each man
Speaking only to themselves as they scanned
The room. Alone, each one was sure that he,
Alone, was thinking up some escape plan.
He trills a slow riff. He stops and stands.
He bows. The faces tell him he is free
Of the missing poet’s lounge. This sad man’s
Thinking all the time. His escape is planned.
by Mark J. Mitchell
A Literary Myth
A dry pen
rolls down the table.
It teeters, momently,
on the edge
then falls
turning gymnastically
and lands point
down in the carpet
exactly like
a sword in a stone.
by Mark J. Mitchell
Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in various periodicals over the last thirty five years, as well as the anthologies Good Poems, American Places,Hunger Enough, and Line Drives. His chapbook, Three Visitors will be published by Negative Capability Press later this year and his novels, The Magic War and Knight Prisoner will be published in the coming months. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and filmmaker Joan Juster. Currently he’s seeking gainful employment since poets are born and not paid.
October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
But did he find the tribe
spat out of rock
below the cousin clouds
with sounding conch shells
between their ears?
They feed on everything:
metals, birdsong, saffron,
until what’s out and in
seem twin and one
like the dance of lesser
and greater dreamtime.
Social as termites,
they raise tower upon
tower, projecting
a blind, spiral god;
vicious as hornets,
they cultivate venoms and
enemies to die of them.
There’s less blood
painting and head polo
than their fathers knew.
Customs evolve as
killing grows easier.
They’d almost rather
track evil spirits
to their inmost cells,
corner them in forests.
Their stories tell both
of gates and pits,
how one can seem
much like the other.
Armed with a language
they speak forward slowly,
liable to lies
and misconstructions,
tending at times
toward the grotesque,
but hopeful at last
of their waiting name.
by James Fowler
James Fowler teaches literature at the University of Central Arkansas. His poems have appeared in such journals as Poetry Quarterly, Rockhurst Review, The Hot Air Quarterly, Amoskeag, and Parting Gifts.
