April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
She sits at the wheel pulling cold balls of clay
centering us on the bat, foot gently feeding the pedal
pressing out our densities, opening our centers
turning us into simple vessels
built for filling.
I want to be your favorite soup-bowl
a singing teapot.
But the world is still creating us—
glazing & firing us until we have no more water, or we give up
or until someone plucks us from the kiln saying,
“You, perfect little vessel, are just what I need.”
When that happens, you are no longer organic
no longer molding Earth: you are Art, capitol A.
That’s what I want to be so fucking bad
but I’ll settle for plate. I’ll sit permanently on your bathroom sink holding your soap.
I’m just tired of being only leather-tough
sick of the world forming & decorating & tattooing designs on me.
Please, just put me on the shelf. Cracked
blemished, unfinished—I want to be useful, I want to be a vessel
I want to know my name and practicality
I want to carry something for you.
by Jacob Collins-Wilson
Jacob Collins-Wilson, a high school English teacher, has had poetry published in Pathos Literary Magazine as well as a short essay published by 1 Bookshelf.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
I.
His legs are twined
with the branch
below him as
if they were
just another knot
taught to him
by his father
when he was
a young boy
II.
I know a girl
who wears innocence
like a sundress,
setting each night
over her ankles
and I know
that there is a boy
with kerosene
in his eyes
that she turns to
and sometimes
I know the boy
and sometimes
that boy is me
III.
We perched
the same branch
like two birds
huddling close
in the depths of winter,
for the music.
Swear, for the music.
Beautiful falsetto.
IV.
My heart is tinder
and the quiet man
that built his home there
this past winter
paces slowly
and with a limp
His footsteps
fall on dry
sticks
and paper
the sound echoing
off of my ribcage amphitheater
and from far away
I’m sure it sounds
like a heartbeat
V.
Old age
just the wisps of
cinder gray above
my head
and in my heart,
trying to remember
themselves auburn
before the fire
VI.
The cartographer stumbles
past slowly:
his legs stiff,
heels clicking
with the ground
like the strikes of a
drafting compass;
and with his every step
earth measures him back.
VII.
I like to practice dying.
Sometimes I lay
down and carve tree trunks, my name scratched six
feet above my head
and admired
by the procession ants
that pause one
by one to
pay their respects
I like to walk
through the forest
looking at the names
that my mother thought about giving me
but didn’t
and wonder if they
are practicing too
VIII.
The gardener cups his thumb on the head of his hose.
When the sun is out
he works alone,
watering the seeds
that his son will
buy one day
from a florist near
8th street and
lay over his grave
IX.
Nothing smells
more like beauty
than rain
on asphalt
Nothing looks so good
as the sun
shining through pollution
At 6 p.m.
Nothing sounds so pretty
as horse hair
and pernambuco
pulled back and forth
in a sea of G major, maple, spruce, and metal strings
as we were the currents
that held them in their sway
by Simon Rhee
Simon Rhee has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Stoneboat Journal, Do Not Look at the Sun, Mania Magazine, Visions with Voices, Red Ochre Lit Mini Chapbook, Line Zero Poetry Finalist, and Mary Ballad Poetry Prize Finalist.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
And I managed to crack the skull in half
Well again
My friend has spent all day gluing it
She like that kind of stuff
Putting shit together
And she always did with such
Zest
Pace
Looks
I wonder if she knew I was looking at her the same way
After she’d manage to fix it for a third time
I looked through the eye socket holes
Down the jaw
Nothing really left
Just glue shit together
Life has a way of always
Reminding us
That death can
Even be broken in
Two
Like
Going after the girl
Cause what the hell
Somebody is probably going to break my
Skull into two
Too
by Giovanni Zuniga
Giovanni Zuniga was born in Los Angeles. Fearing that he would be consumed by vanity Giovanni set out on exchange to Sweden. After using Europe as an adult playground he will attempt to finish in high spirits at San Francisco State University in Cinema and afterward plans to move to Prague to continue writing.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Melancholia
I. Romance
When we began, we [you] were
Perfect.
We bonded like atoms in the axes of DNA,
united and complete after years of alienation,
months of rejection, and days
of secrecy.
We found ourselves within each other,
and the future was destiny.
But it was all just a fallacy, for your
dishonesty and charm masked an ugliness
I simply didn’t want to see—
at least, not
Initially.
II. Reflection
It seems I knew you best during the days
before we met, when shadows concealed
secrets and imagination held no memories
to deflect.
You fell so quickly and so far
from the pedestal you’d constructed,
casting deceit with false humility,
leaving the fools of familiarity
disgusted.
You failed me continuously and
continued on remorselessly,
sacrificing our sanctity for
shallow gestures entwined in
infidelity.
You were a black swan swimming in a sea of
dysmorphic dreams, and I watched the
skylines fracture as your insecurities enveloped
our schemes.
But it’s fine with me. Honestly.
Beautiful shells can’t disguise inner
vulgarity, and the dissociative mirrors
which so often gave you grace
would smash upon an instant
if they reflected your heart instead of
your face.
I look back with baited breath at a travesty
not worthy enough to settle, for you became
a forlorn parody.
I never meant to marry a bloated devil.
III. Resonance
I know now that nothing is guaranteed;
everything concrete can crumble by night,
resurfacing in the mourning to reveal fragments
of happiness within heartache by the light.
Every night it seems, as I drift within dreams,
I’ll suffer nostalgia and regret as our past passions
suggest possibilities that will never be met.
When we began, we were perfect. But
that was so long ago, and I’ve aged
decades within weeks just to rid myself
of your abhorrent afterglow.
And if we walk
along the same road again
our paths will cross with indifference,
feeling less than for strangers,
our heads bowed down,
our mouths silent,
hands in pockets,
warmth receding,
leaving nothing
between us
but
air.
Acrosticalyptic
Yesterday I met a man from Shelmire who wore pink trousers and ate
Exquisite bananas, brown and rotting, as if they were his last meal for
The night. He leaned into my ear and whispered the meaning of life:
At every stage of development there comes a time when we must
Notice the importance of our accomplishments, cherish our loved
Ones and regret our mistakes and insults. God wants us to believe
That we were put here for the purpose of disproving his twisted
Hypothesis that man is inherently evil. In fact, we are born with
Every innocence possessed by the dove, the dog, and the damned
Regression of our grandparents.
Meanwhile, as he’s saying this, I can’t help but notice the goatee
Eerily sprouting around his mouth. His teeth are as white as the
Angels that betrayed him, cast him aside and cursed him to below,
Never again feeling the Almighty love. I tell him I’ve never felt
It either, and for a moment he puts his hand on my shoulder, as hot
Now as it’s ever been, even though the blistering cold of Shelmire
Generally makes temperatures drop rapidly, as if by some need to
Lament the damage fire can do. By this point I’m very confused,
Eying the other passengers who boarded with me, whose faces now
Seem to all blend together as they pass by us, heads hung down and
Sobbing their late arrival to final judgment.
Previously I’d been a church going man, with a wife, and three
Insignificant runts running around the carpeted lower floor. And
Every Thursday night I’d tell them I was having a late beer with
Co-workers in an old fashioned pub off the corner of Deverouex St.
Everyone believed me, and I thought I got away with it. But, no.
Obviously, the man continues, no one really escapes the amazing,
Finely tuned insight of Him. And now He is punishing us all.
People line up behind the man as he throws the banana peel aside and
One slips, breaks his neck, and gets up again. We all laugh at the “fallen”
Eternity. Actually, the man was quite nice to stop and chat for at least
Ten minutes while everyone else arrived. He says just as many are going to
Royal white clouds and blue skies behind the golden gate of Heaven.
You could go with them if you choose, or come stay with us, and burn.
Skyline Fractured
The sky fell twice & twisted its limbs
on the mourning you were born.
It wept and bled and shook and raged
for the souls you’d come to scorn.
It carried its weight against the waves
and blinded its children in darkness.
Partially torn upon creation so light
could manifest in cracks and mock us.
And you looked so well in white, before
the devils possessed your cunning.
You rested upon the fields that burned
while I cowered and kept on running.
And every day I dare to dream that we’ll
find eternity within our embrace.
The sky rose violently in the aftermath,
Leaving the devastation of summer in its place.
by Jordan Blum
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
–after a line from Nabokov
Father, deep in workshop thoughts, heaves a neutral sigh
Daddy’s at the workbench. He sighs in resignation.
Pa’s bent over his tools biting his tongue.
Hey Dad, cat got your tongue? Talk to me. No.
Papa’s thinking. Let him work. He doesn’t hear.
Leave your dad alone, can’t you see he wants
to work? Don’t you hear the power
saw? A man’s work, power, keeps him
here, in now, no future, no past, here, now, present
in one-gone-home-bliss-now. If he lets me I’ll sit
sit on the stool and watch. I’ll bite my tongue and click
the wooden ruler-one two three four ‘til he stops
me, watch the bubble float on the level. I used
his best screwdrivers for test stakes damn he was
mad. He doesn’t like damn but at least its not talking
the Lord’s name
I like the way the board looks with the tools drawn
in black–the outline of the saw, hammer shape,
wrenches going downhill sizes around the little
hook holes rows. I’m gonna make one just like that
when I grow up. Make one in the kitchen, hang,
like my mother hangs her copper bottom pots
all shined every time she uses ‘em. It’s vain, you know,
showing how proud you are of a pot. Me, I don’t want
to ever be called Mother. They should say Ma.
Not MaMa, Mommy, maybe Mom OK but I’d like
Ma, if I have to be called anything but my name. I’m vain
about my name. It’s from Gramma, my mother’s
Gramma with the white white skin blue veined
hands. Oldest person in the world sitting in a dark
room and Uncle Otto some kind of son, son-
in-law–sits out in the garage door all day
by a work bench. Like my dad’s only he don’t put
his tools away so neat
by Kelley Jean White
Kelley’s writing has been widely published since 2000 in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Friends Journal, Nimrod, Poet Lore, Rattle, the Journal of the American Medical Association and in a number of chapbooks and full-length collections, most recently Toxic Environment from Boston Poet Press, Two Birds in Flame, poems related to the Shaker Community at Canterbury, NH, from Beech River Books, and “In Memory of the Body Donors,” Covert Press. She have received several honors, including a 2008 grant for poetry from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Rice Balls: New York, 1983
Your skin is yellow and you
weigh about 100 pounds.
Your face is gaunt and your
eyes bulge out of your head
like the eyes of fly. You are
inert, wasted and wasting.
You got the flu but it wouldn’t go
away and then came the lesions,
first on your shoulder then your
chest and now they cover your
torso like you’ve been leeched in
the Dark Ages. You took yourself
to the ER where you lay on a
gurney in your own shit for hours
and then you were put in isolation,
told you have AIDS and now
you will never be touched by
an ungloved hand again.
And it keeps getting worse.
Your veins burn from one medicine
while your brain is being eaten
alive by some virus only birds get.
Meals are pushed into your room
by terrified orderlies but you
can’t bear to eat them because the
lesions are in your throat too. Your life
has become some medieval nightmare
and apparently you are going to
expire in absolute agony.
It is the reverse trajectory of
The Wizard of Oz where you
are thrust backwards into a
grim black and white world
forever banished from the
vibrancy of your beloved
New York that you chose
like a promised land.
Only a month ago you were at
home in your 5th floor walk-up
with the slanted floors and
high ceilings in Little Italy
where a fat lady with big red
hair sat outside your window
at a card table selling rice balls
out of tin foil pans. She made
them in her tenement kitchen and
would show up everyday at 3 yelling
Rice balls, come and get ‘em!
just when the local school lets
out with the mostly Chinese kids
whose mothers were there to get them,
and no one was speaking English.
The rice ball lady had a broom the
handle of which she would wave
and poke at people, mostly Black
people, when she didn’t like them.
Once you called the police to
report this and they just laughed
when you told them where
you lived.
And now, nothing is left of you but
this wasting, gasping, collapsing, fevered
body well on its way to becoming a
corpse. The doctor tells you, through
his surgical mask, that you are
‘putting up a good fight’ but you’d
like to hit him with the handle
of a broomstick and finally
buy one of those rice balls.
Playlist
Somewhere between Marianne Faithfull
and Leonard Cohen I decide to add
Burt Bacharach to the playlist I am making
the first few notes of Jackie DeShannon’s voice
singing What the World Needs Now bounce around
the airy room – living room dining room and kitchen
all in one – and can be heard outside by the pool
which is being heated because the nights are still chilly
and cannot be heard by our old dog who is fast asleep
on the rug by the fireplace having given up hope
for a ride in the Jeep his favorite thing
and then there you are standing next to me with
your food-stained blue cooking apron on and your even bluer eyes
and here we are carrying on waiting for house guests to arrive
so I wonder what I will play next and I think
perhaps Jimmy Webb might be right his voice plaintive
and unadorned singing Wichita Lineman the song he wrote
I need you more than want you and I want you
for all time yes that should do the trick
hold everything together and be soft enough to
not wake the dog.
by Jay Kidd
Jay Kidd is a student at the Writers Studio in New York, studying with Philip Schultz. His poem “Lost Time” recently appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
