Marriage and Casanovas
Dylan Willoughby
Dylan Willoughby’s photography has appeared in On the Seawall (10-photograph feature), Wrongdoing, Rejection Letters, and many other venues. Dylan has been a residency fellow at Yaddo and MacDowell and holds an MFA from Cornell.
twice a day
he leans into concrete tunnels that run beneath
driveways, trusting in what waits amid wet leaves, grass
clippings, the effluent of suburbia – he is a true believer, a witness
who recalls a raddled tabby within one gutter’s
curve – temptation dwelling in the swirl
and shadows
the cat is long gone
but still our walks include vigils at each grated altar
our own Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage
of fidelity, a leaning in, nose-to-ground petition
to see if today will be the day
of revelation
at leash-end
I watch his loyal seeking, his peering into circles
of dark and empty, and long for his faith
of returning again and again
Lucinda Trew
Lucinda Trew is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and recipient of Boulevard Magazine’s 2023 Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets. Her work has been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Susurrus Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, storySouth, and elsewhere. She lives and writes in the piney, red clay piedmont of North Carolina with her jazz musician husband, two dogs, two cats, and far too many books to count. Her collection, What Falls to Ground, is forthcoming from Charlotte Lit Press.
untethered from my daydreams
my husband says ¿Que te pasa?
¿Por que tanto suspiro?
it’s even a joke now—my fictional
characters respond to every
line of dialogue with sighs.
Like me. We’re illegible,
scrawling out the only possible
response, knee-deep in flail—
trails of guilt or worry or shame.
Today’s flavour, borrowed in bulk,
could be the baby squirrel’s failure
to thrive despite two-hour intervals
of squirrel Ensure syringed into his mouth,
or the gravity of the paralyzed kitten
white-knuckling her way
onto the couch, back legs dragging
behind like limp balloons,
a trail of urine swished across
the floor with her lifeless tail.
All of it grim. Buckling under
concrete walls of my neighbour’s
construction— the misplaced anger
or is it jealousy—
daily aimed out. I, not wanting
anymore to make this heartache
into compost, rich and mulchy;
converting inflected pain from
their daily pot shots into
medicine. Instead, I want to
molotov cocktail my clumsy pain
back at them, impaling
injustice
back at them,
firing off cannons of ill will
until we all fall.
Instead, we sip a homemade root
beer, in a contemplative quiet
punctured by deep sighs.
Lisa Lopez Smith
Lisa López Smith is a mother and farmer making her home in central Mexico. When not wrangling kids or rescue dogs or goats, you can probably find her working on her next novel. Her poems and essays have been published in over 55 literary journals and nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets. Her first chapbook was published by Grayson Books; her full-length collection is forthcoming from Nightwood Editions.
Trimming a bonsai tree is probably better entertainment. Listening to good music, from classical to jazz to rock-n-roll, is so much better that I cannot overestimate the difference. Watching television is even more addictive nowadays with YouTube’s endless gobbledygook. Looking at paintings at MOCA, or at my local Art Walk, is much better than reading. Read this. I simply don’t like to read, even a little bit—plain fact.
And, since for many readers, this anti-reading confession of mine hits too close to the wobbly eyeballs, let me just say, though, that I like to have read most of what I reluctantly read. That is, I like to have the knowledge that comes with reading, the erudite vocabulary, for example. I like to learn new ways of punctuating sentences, too, and especially of complicating sentences. Or fragmenting them. I even like learning about crap I wouldn’t otherwise care about. Work?
Reading is work, period. You see, I grew up watching TV, lots of “I Love Lucy,” and funny movies starring Eddie Murphy. Reading was something that teachers made you do, not something you did for pleasure. The movie The Matrix has its characters learn jujitsu and how to fly a helicopter instantly, with no reading required. I would sign up for that.
But if I must read, poetry is my favorite. I started my latest poetry book, a longish anthology, at the end, reading backwards, poem by poem, so the experience wouldn’t seem a chore, fooling myself (almost) that the obligation is not a whole book, but just one poem, then done. Mostly, only poems with intriguing titles get read, but this time around I intend to read each poem, trusting the editor, not wanting to miss a good poem, an important poem … to learn from. Reading is research for me, always study. If inspired, I stop reading, and I try to write a poem. In this manner, like a pendulum progressing inexorably forward with each lumbering swing as the world creeps through space, I have been a prolific writer, and well-read, too.
So, why don’t I quit? I’m not in school. I seldom get more than a contributor’s copy for my efforts. Well, I think it is inertia … yes, that is why I still write. I have put in too much time to quit now. And I hear you arguing with me—like a remedial English teacher proofreading a slow student’s work, saying, “Why did you ever start writing in the first place … if you don’t like to read? Dunce! Nincompoop! Why produce writing—work, work which you, by definition, say that you don’t like?”
The answer: I wanted to validate my life, to give a deeper meaning to my experiences, my haphazard life, my astonishing life, my great life! And, of course, to express my unrelenting ennui … and love, such as it is.
Dana Stamps, II
Dana Stamps, II, is a bipolar poet and essayist who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cal State University of San Bernardino, and has worked as a fast-food server, a postal clerk, a security guard, and a group home worker with troubled boys. A Pushcart nominee, poetry chapbooks “For Those Who Will Burn” and “Drape This Chapbook in Blue” were published by Partisan Press, and “Sandbox Blues” by Evening Street Press.
Locke Boarding House
Thomas Vogt
Thomas Vogt is an aspiring poet, photographer, and city planner in Sacramento, California. He enjoys capturing the ‘every day’ through a pen, a lens, or behind a mug at your local coffee shop. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Radar Poetry, Magpie Zine, LIT magazine, and 3elements Review.
