July 2013 | back-issues, poetry
To wind that blows from better days
with the scent of mint and honeysuckle,
I thank you for this breath of fresh air
in weather long past prediction.
To sun that sets into the ocean
whose water does not dowse,
I warm my hands tonight
on the campfire you set today.
To rain that cleans and cools
the wounds and thirsts for more,
from cupped hands I drink
my limit of clear waterfall.
To all elements, all hungers,
may I learn to give what you need
and fair portion of what you want.
To the earth that bears us,
I mourn the scars of our legacy
but thank you for the home we share
atop your weathered body.
by Robert S. King
Robert S. King, a native Georgian, now lives in the mountains near Hayesville, NC. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Lullwater Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published three chapbooks (When Stars Fall Down as Snow, Garland Press 1976; Dream of the Electric Eel, Wolfsong Publications 1982; and The Traveller’s Tale, Whistle Press 1998). His full‐length collections are The Hunted River and The Gravedigger’s Roots, both in 2nd editions from FutureCycle Press, 2012; and One Man’s Profit from Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013.
July 2013 | back-issues, poetry
coffee ring residue
she said, lately i’m as comforting
as a cup of day-old, microwaved coffee
i told her, silly kitten – you don’t drink java
you’re missing the point
where were you saturday night?
why did you stumble home at 4:00 AM?
who were you with?
no one; no body (spoke Odysseus, the liar)
credit cards leave a paper trail
like little, extramarital breadcrumbs
she asked me, when was the last time
you were honest with yourself
or with me?
i shrugged and emptied myself into the drain
not my best
put the blue one on, she said
i like that one
she helps me
pull the windsor knot
taut
water on the stove
for coffee
don’t forget
cufflinks
i wasn’t feeling
my best
(not my best at all)
but she helps
me find the buttons
and keeps
my tie
straight
C Carol studied poetry under Diane Wakoski at Michigan State University and has been published in Empty Mirror (http://www.emptymirrorbooks.com/author/clcarol) and elsewhere.
July 2013 | back-issues, fiction
Being on the run wasn’t half as glamorous as I had expected: they never tell you about Bonnie and Clyde shitting in the woods.
by Samuel Best
Samuel Best is a Glasgow-based writer and also runs Octavius, a literary magazine for students studying in Scotland. Samuel is currently writing two novels based on different blends of Scottish national identity, violence and running away. He tweets at @spbbest and has more stories available here: http://samuelbest.weebly.com/
July 2013 | back-issues, poetry
we were mistaken for sisters, two middle-school blondes,
glasses sliding down noses, volleying secrets
in whispers. winter storm clouds held the promise
of snow days; we crossed our fingers for blizzards.
years later, we sit in her parlor, discussing our lives.
we’ve forgotten much, but memories cut our minds
like dull knives – a butchery too eternal
to reconsider, too sweetly painful to pass by.
I drive away. the moon sags behind the sifting snow,
a frigid night so similar to the ones we used
to hope for together. old dreams are frozen through
from time and cold. what we need is a break in the weather.
by Katherine Vondy
Katherine Vondy is an LA-based writer and filmmaker. A 2009 resident writer at Wildacres, a 2012 resident artist at Starry Night and a 2013 artist-in-residence at the Vermont Studio Center, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Stickman Review, Toasted Cheese, Red River Review, Perigee, Dark Sky Magazine, The Oklahoma Review, Breakwater Review and short story anthology The Lover, the Lunatic and the Poet. Katherine earned a BA in English and Music from Amherst College and an MFA in Film & Television Production from the University of Southern California. Her blog of comedic mini-essays can be found at http://thewalkingdeadpan.tumblr.com/.
July 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Fragments of Southwestern Youth
Stink beetles balance
beaks
on splintered porch.
Arizona daze,
San Francisco Peaks
sanctify.
Dragonflies flash blue
as jelly shoes.
Chicken-egg scoop
coop.
Sunflowers arch
rock-hunked roads
through ponderosa pine.
Jewelry-maker
neighbor, turquoise nuggets
machine drills, echoes.
Pine bough huts,
Sinagua potsherds,
black-on-white patterns
fragment underfoot;
daydreams dead awaken
earthen palms:
ontological monsoon.
No cell phone, no gps.
Sun out time: time-in
moon orb oozes behind
Mars Hill:
no ears ringing, no calls
from home or to home,
not in far-gone
forest of youth.
Visitor at Tsaile Lake
It’s dry as drought. A freckle-face cow startles the way, horns point tips to hip. Sun bleached tree limbs strew land all over the place like moo bones. Indian paint brush flame. Grasshoppers buzz the path, streak sand with dot lines, sashaying among piñon pine and juniper to a clearing. Clouds smile wisping turquoise sky, reflecting Tsaile Lake. Horsetails, four, dance lyrical. A pale pony, muscle-legs shades of sage, ignores, mane and tail, ink-black as raven wing shine, tendril a bellowing sky. A pitch-black horse, white splotched down its sides like a painted on saddle, skedaddles. Albino stallion, eyes lined pink, bucks. Hoofs tread coral sand amidst thickets of sea-green sagebrush: itch, itch, I itch, sneeze, wheeze. Wind blows a current to a reddish mare grazing a frenzy feed of native grass. All the wild horses I pass. Folks at lakeshore tug trout while bridal-white pelicans rise, rise. A truck of boys get stuck today–muck spins wheels, stop again, again spin, at lakes end. Navajo women in a pickup pull up, say: “Are you from around here?”
Wendy Sue Gist’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Dark Matter, New Plains Review, Oyez Review, Pif Magazine, Rio Grande Review, RipRap, The Chaffey Review, The Fourth River and Tulane Review for your consideration.
