April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
I must keep loading more photos
of alpine bogs on Wikipedia to substitute
for real travel. I have found the gathered
heather, drying after the scythe, to be naturally
deficient, despite their colors and texture
but the photographs….suffice? Yes. Someday,
I’ll skip stones from a seated position
on a much larger, flatter stone. I will cut my
fingernails and learn Gaelic, I will sing
as loudly as my lungs are able to project
(and many more things I cannot promise
I keep quiet to myself). I will dance and my partner
will possess two parallel and equivalent braids.
There will be a cold wind—the heather, here,
alive and well, shaking in its grasp. I will laugh
at a willow grouse. I will cite all my sources,
because my upbringing was strangely emphatic
when it came to academic honesty. Blooming,
in its final moments, the sun sets. Rays! Rays all over.
—Payton Cuddy
Payton Cuddy is a native of Bryn Mawr, PA. He is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in English at Kenyon college.
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Using a calligraphy pen,
she traced the side of my face
onto crisp paper stock,
mutton chops and tam
stitched in profile.
She shared it
before king oaks
in the UNC courtyard.
Journalism camp, a random
choice, but lent
to the surprise, and
a walk and a swim. Calendar
pages turned and we sat
along the Currituck Sound,
our bodies engraving maps
of our explorations
in the damp sand.
Our inexperienced hands
roamed one another
and without much
warning, the day breaks
the two of us into
our separate ways,
but distant pictures still
linger, and songs still
remind. Beach prints
remain to echo
our art. Museum galleries
framing the past.
—Paul Piatkowski
Paul Piatkowski lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with his wife, daughter, and corgi. He teaches English at Forsyth Technical Community College. His work has been published in journals like Florida English, A Hudson View, 2River View, Nagautuck River Review, U.S.1 Worksheets, Fast Forward, Sheepshead Review, and Ditch.
April 2014 | back-issues, fiction
The old man rested his elbows against the rail of the bridge and contemplated the churning depths below. He was ready to be done with his problems.
He held the plastic card over the rail and let go. There. He would never be tempted to spend himself into so much debt again.
Sammy shivered under the thin blanket as the wind invaded his space under the bridge. Something sharp hit him in the forehead. He swore and searched among the rocks for the assailant.
A credit card, sent to him straight from the heavens. Sammy knelt and praised the Lord.
—Anna Zumbro
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Exploit the Masses
Anyone who violates any of
The exclusive rights of the copyright
Owner as provided by section One-
Oh-Six through One-Twenty-Two or of the
Author as provided in section One-
Oh-Six A(a) is a low down liar.
I will see him at dawn, see him at ten
Paces. This is not Garfield’s dog, it is
Jacko’s ceramic chimp. This is genius.
While I am not prepared to call it best,
Honesty is quite a good policy.
It ranks with making the trains run on time,
With eating vegetables, with not spitting
Into the wind, or with not stepping on
Cracks, breaking backs, breaking banks, or banking
On much coming of it. So eat your soup,
Drink your tea, dot your I. Honestly, you
Have to stop meeting me like this. I can’t
Keep hearing about your kids, your childhood,
The curl of your pubes or the squeal of your
Sex. I do not even know who you are.
Your name rung no roseys, and your poses
Are way too familiar. They are hung in
All of America’s dorm rooms. Let’s go,
Then, you and I, our separate ways, horse
Knows the way to carry the sleigh, so ease
On down the road, oh, ease on down the road.
Jenna Jameson Says The First Thing That Comes Out Of Her Mouth Is Right.
She said at last that his penis was just
Too small and let’s go to the video
O she says o o uh ah uh er…
Pat Summerall is dead! (what’s one more voice
Not to say through the uprights or it’s in
Or time taken or now a word from
CNN says he was a dark-skinned man
Says next time on Daddy I’ve had to kill
Says last week on May I Fuck Your Daughter?
On that note may I fuck your daughter? She
Is something I hear Dandy Don chime in
And she should cook now from the makers of
The Anarchist Cookbook ISBN 1607965232
Tagged “education” on Amazon tick.bomb
How we like explosions explosioner
How ready rowdy are all my friends to
How Joe Theisman’s leg breaks time and time and
Time again small bones small and very small
You Will Go Blind
Before drinks even arrive, she howls,
Screams she’s never been much afraid of clowns
Or public speaking, even marionettes
We wake to find dangling overhead. In her
Profile she calls bungee jumping a “passion.”
It’s bullshit. I hope there is less to life.
All I ask is a healthy respect. Order
House salad, the table wine. Oil light red
Pull over, please. Use before use-before
Dates. More than two taps is playing with it.
It’s not a toy. This is no joke. What’s more
I don’t recall asking. Look. Time for bed.
R&D is on it, I hear, to weave
A harness and shock cord, Kevlar, snug. It allows
Freedom to move you never much had, breathes
Like boxers, supports like tighty-whiteys
Brings out the jock in you, your vertical
Infinite provided (naturally) it’s down.
—Brian Cooney
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
She Takes the Bus
I’m watching her eat, gathering soup with a spoon from the far side of the bowl, a precise calculation, is she educating me? But I’m remembering it wrong, when did we order soup? Was it the chicken soup I placed before her at my kitchen table, under the grandmother curtain, the night she needed soup, or in the loud bar that late evening when she was hungry, I was hungry and the weather was changing, and the soup wasn’t good, but maybe hot enough. Another time I made soup from the bone broth in my freezer. I put a clump of fresh thyme tied with string, and left it in too long, and the watercress turned to slime, along with the parsley, but the carrots were memorable, she winces at my telling her this, the thought of those living greens turning, is she seducing me? I’ve a steaming bowl of wanton soup in front of me now, which I won’t finish, she’ll be eating it tomorrow reheated, and I’ll pick up her bus tickets from my rug.
She Leaves Antiperspirant Residue
On my bathrobe. It’s a one-size I purchased from a Salvation Army, the same one Magnum P.I. wore, I imagine. I bought it in Hawaii, too, and now I put it on after the shower and catch the scent from which I comprehend actual time-release. And I suspect she isn’t bothered by the word extreme when choosing the items she consumes. It’s all part of a tapestry of surreal negotiations of trust. It’s all part of a quilt of conscience she is making.
She Handles Extraordinary Impasses
With the skill of a faith healer. She embraces what another manufactures for themself and relates to that fabrication, which is only a contrivance in the personality of the Original. In this case the Original is her faith in the authenticity of that personality. That personality was manufactured from the start by the Original. And now she is castigated for not breaking through to an underpinning, not shattering the mirror she didn’t know she needed to shatter. But then she didn’t want to yet.
She Bakes Flourless Cakes
There are bags of pulverized everything on the shelves which she can use to make a cake. We wander opposite ends of a supermarket: I in the dim-lit bottles section, seeming to subsist on cheap red wine, while she in the vegetables selecting mounds of wet leafy greens. We will spend too much anyway, and I will make a fuss before the magic happens. She never makes a fuss until the magic is spent. Her fortitude is in the suspense. Her resolve lies somewhere between the magic and her imagination.
—M. D’Alessandro
M.D’Alessandro is a writer, teacher, publisher and printer. He edits the semiannual literary journal swap/concessions, and is the founder of bedouin books. He has been published in various journals and is the author of two books of poetry.
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
An aspen or
two hundred and fifty blurred nymphae,
of these I dream in a coarse habit
and wake gasping,
convinced of the withering performed
by dew and a thousand sediments.
Shaken roughly at matins,
and rolling nearer the scorched logs,
you murmur sleepily, “This is only artifice.”
And adding after taking glasses
from the bedside table,
“Soon to burst above the mere:
an orange tongue of flame.”
—Harrison Montgomery
Harrison Montgomery is an undergraduate at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He is studying poetry and music composition and is involved with the Kenyon Review.
