April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
could have seemed more mundane
than an accidental Safeway run-in
after you simply stopped your pursuit
and, instead, went after groceries.
You wore brown, reminding me
of New Yorkers I used to watch,
in grey flannel flesh,
seemingly unfamiliar with sun.
Nothing more mundane.
Just grey and brown and we had to,
or I did, speak. You had been the sun,
the foreign flare, bursting last time
we met with life.
You saw me again and your hands
hung from your jacket
like leaves dead early on branches
in another fall. Nothing of life
was left, neither precious gold or warmth,
or Spanish rhythm. Only packaged meat
and bagged produce. Hands off,
and an explanation I had to buy.
by Alita Pirkopf
Alita’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Alembic, Caduceus, The Chaffin Journal, The Distillery, The Griffin, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Harpur Palate, Illya’s Honey, Lullwater Review, Quiddity, RiverSedge, Ship of Fools, Westview, and Willow Springs Review.
April 2015 | back-issues, nonfiction
‘Time to count it out,” said Tommy the gay black manager. I always liked Tommy, he was not stupid, he was good to us and not needy or demanding. The black girls started counting out the chicken pieces and talking shit as usual, I listened in because they were blunt and funny. Some of them didn’t mind pocketing money from customers. I walked across the greasy floor and started counting out the leftover pieces of chicken and bucketing them, planned to take home some original recipe and red beans and rice. One last group of customers appeared at the register, a black dude ordered a two piece chicken and biscuit, by accident he got two boxes but paid for one, a white dude in the crowd called him out, they went out to the parking lot and squared off, the black due took off his belt and started swinging it at the white, this went on for a couple minutes then Tommy told us to stop watching and get back to work.
by Joel Rook
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Boom!
Rivets from the 50-foot distillery tank busted from the flimsy
metal sheets exploding with molasses onto Boston’s North End.
The two million gallon wave thrashed people
into billiards, freight cars, and stables.
Children who had once collected the seeping sucrose off the tank for
suckers were trapped under its girth and met their gooey graves.
Teamsters and librarians on their noonday lunches sitting in the balmy
climate were strangled by its syrupy brown glaze and swept under it like trash to a dustpan.
The trotting of horses through the city hauling goods came to a stop –
their hooves stuck to the street as bugs to flypaper.
Houses and stores didn’t go unscathed either – being wrenched from their
roots and ensnaring electrical poles, trucks, and the firehouse in its glutinous wake.
Twenty-one died and another 150 injured, but to this today
the air still lingers of the sweet smelling
molasses.
by Arika Elizenberry
Arika Elizenberry is a native of Las Vegas, Nevada. She has been writing poetry for over ten years; some of her favorite writers are Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin. Her work has appeared in the Silver Compass, Neon Dreams, Open Road Review, and East Coast Literary with forthcoming works in ZO Magazine, 300 Days of Sun, Blue Lyra Review, and Aspirations. She currently has an A.A. in Creative Writing and is working on her B.A.
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
“To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this
corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become
impossible to write poetry today.”
-Theodor Adorno
Follow me,
from fields of white Asphodels,
to Tainaron’s gate,
now open like Hades’ heart.
Hopeless darkness,
fires at our heels,
the brass walls of hell sweat
bullets when we flee,
Me from you, you,
my Eurydice
And if all my love could not turn back
to see such beauty, then I am ghost,
I breathe the airs of hell.
Turn back, turn back, I wish to see
the beauty of Eurydice.
No longer can I write poetry
for all my loss
has stopped my hand just inches from the
parchment. And the songs,
once played for all,
have been lined up, and
damned, one by one,
to the pits
below.
With all my heart I plead
To take back Eurydice.
No Virgil can help my art start bleeding
from the lands I’ve once known so dear,
Mount Helicon’s foot.
In that hell where ash rained
like sand in time,
I try to free myself
from Eurydice.
by Nicholas McCarthy
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Terrifying winter night
Plum fog drowns
the winter sky
and frost makes furniture
on the ground for insects
I stagger through the forest,
having just buried 12 possessed puppets
and 17 bloody jabots
by Ashlie Allen
Bees and ghosts
Blue hues of winter
flicker against your pale skin
I remember when you were a child
screaming in the garden
because there were too many bees
and too many ghosts
Now the garden is dead
and the ghosts and bees
reside inside your eyes
by Ashlie Allen
Cactus balloons
Her ghost whimpers
in the flower pot
as I pop balloons
against the cactus she held
the day she sighed, “Sayōnara.”
by Ashlie Allen
“Gothic colors”
The shadow of bats
through mauve fog,
the rattle of violent violin music
through skeletons and wood
I weep beneath
a dead woman’s window
as I pretend the world
is a funeral and I am a ghost
trapped in gothic colors
by Ashlie Allen
Ashlie Allen writes fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in The Birds We Piled Loosely, Blink Ink, The Assonance Literary Magazine, Literary Orphans and others. She plans to become a photographer in the future. Her greatest influence is Anne Rice.
April 2015 | back-issues, poetry
The Gypsy
Green solar plexus envious
fastidious and plagued in dis-ease
bikes to ride past your house
eye balls on springs and wide open
glued hairs in scrapbook
voodooed photographs and bottled tears
grimaced grew cats teeth and whiskers
grew a warm layer of fur
scratched you+me on my bedpost
and voodooed that too
stole ten dollars from the grocer
stole ten persimmons and thirteen oranges
sold persimmons and oranges on the bridge
sold collages of voodooed photographs
sold tears as divinity potions
glittered the cement with golddust
grinned despite green chakras
and hid envy underneath my shawl.
by Jennifer Wesle
portrait of the lady in a big blue hat
so this squishy underbelly fleshy tender
pescanoce-nectarine tummy
your pink-white fruit
juicy
dangle gently
swaying
with the movements of limbs
arms like snake trees
long limbs
fine form of genetics
praises and salutations
to grandparents with good family planning
generations of high cheekbones
thick shiny hair
straight legs
& fine noses
like thoroughbred
you are agile and conditioned
high strung
high society
with hat (bridle)
hanging precariously
tipped over one dainty ear
you careened
on heels of crocodiles
on carpeted boulevards
into studio
out of navy blue diane furstenberg
you undressed
splashed onto canvass
and became
immortal.
by Jennifer Wesle
Jennifer Wesle is a Canadian writer/artist/musician. She is working on a poetry manuscript and studying English and Psychology. She leads a semi-nomadic life and is currently living, finding inspiration, learning Italian and eating in Italy.
