October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Herb Robert
The pale-pink spikes of Herb Robert
recede in hedgebank’s galaxy
of buttercup, harebell and phlox
unsucked by butterfly or buzzing bee;
one visitor alone alights
on its unfancied petal- fair
hard to tell if wasp or fly-
its pungent nectar to imbibe.
As in the case of flowers spurned,
insects that seem grotesque,
everyone and everything
is each by nature blessed
with purpose and the gift
of love and being loved;
and for their very difference,
by only fools are scorned.
by Mike Gallagher
Car Park
Blonde: Tall
Legs: Long
Jeans: Blue
Coat: Brown
Colours: Clash
Beauti: Fully
Long legs
Long strides
This way
Bygone
Old man
Dream on.
by Mike Gallagher
Mike Gallagher was born on Achill Island, Co. Mayo, Ireland. He lived in Britain for forty years before retiring to Lyrecrompane, Co. Kerry. In Ireland he has been published in The Doghouse Book of Ballad Poems, Irish Haiku Society, Revival, The Stony Thursday Book and Crannog; outside Ireland, his poetry and prose has been published throughout Europe, America, Canada, Japan, India and Australia. He won the Eigse Michael Hartnett viva voce prize in 2010 and is a current nominee for the Hennessy Award. He is the editor of thefirstcut, an online literary journal.
October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
maniacal
although she nods, pats my shoulder, and says, “Don’t worry about it, Dear, I know you’ve been busy. I know you have more important concerns on your mind,” I can tell that behind those soft brown, pseudo-sympathetic eyes lurks a maniacal, mindless, slaveringly hideous female beast, already plotting her revenge for me not having noticed her new hair-do.
pricked
in the twilight I see her across the grass and the folding chairs and faded blankets talking with some friends, gesticulating, pushing the hair back off her face, and I think how very pretty she is still, and listen intently, like a fox with its ears pricked, for the sounds of her precious voice to reach me in brief, simple, unorganized tones
serenade
I always felt I should do something unusual or extreme to win her over, to gain her attention, her look of approval, like serenade her or call out to her from beneath her window like in the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, climb a ladder, snatch her away, her knight in armor shining like the moon
first kiss
we’re up in the spotlight booth as the lights go dim in the high school auditorium, she seems so happy, yes, she does seem happy, quietly waiting with her eyes closed tight allowing me to steal my first kiss from her there alone in the night
beauty
on the steps outside the old gym, early winds of autumn blowing in from across the playing fields, I have to try and tell her, I must tell her, about her unspeakable softness, her shattering beauty, her shining brown eyes, her sweet, feminine scent, but all I can proclaim is, “I love you,” and clasp her precious hands desperately in mine
glimpse
under an empty moon, I walked the three miles from my house to her house, hid in her back yard, down low in the bushes, waiting, hoping, for a mere glimpse of her sweet, pure, white form moving up in her bedroom window
incredulity
she’s incredulous as I tell her my terrible dream where she no longer loves me, her eyes staring empty, so empty, into space
by Michael Estabrook
October 2012 | back-issues, fiction
It’s the usual scene – family, close friends, and distant relatives are packed into a tiny salon. Their black mourning clothes make them indistinguishable from each other. It’s hot.
The tension is extreme. It breaks when the body is carried in. Now comes the theatrics, the crying, the weeping, even fainting. Breath, sighs, sweat, and tears add to the humidity. It’s unbearable. Seated on the sofa, kneading a soaked, wrinkled handkerchief, I can hardly hide my loathing. I want them to go. I wish they would sweat blood rather than salt water.
Gradually the dark figures leave, taking their moans with them. Only a few of his closest friends remain. Attempting to comfort me, they offer me coffee. I shake my head. With disturbed and quizzical looks, they, too, finally depart, leaving me alone, fulfilling my wish which would have shocked them…had they known.
I have long imagined him like this – transparent, bluish. I see the grimace of rictus on his face. It chills me to my bones. His eyes fly open in a bloodshot flash. I feel hot. In a moment, he’ll be inside me, taking my breath away, leaving me to pant.
by Carmen Simón (translated by Toshiya Kamei)
October 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Academic Retreat
bland ennui
podium drones
chittering cadres
splintering styrofoam
blank figures
tedium’s bones
self-referential
legume enumerators
blunt stylus
medium’s cones
somnolent sputter
dreary enervation
by William B. Robison
Divine Confection
Once my mother made a big plate of divinity
and I said to my brother, bet you can’t eat just one.
Well, we fell out laughing, thinking about the time when
we bought a bag of chips from the sexy checkout girl
and kept making jokes coming home from the grocery
cracking up and wondering how the Lays lady lays
with a cautious nod to the copyright attorney
and all due apologies to Mister Bob Dylan,
though a man who makes his living from clever wordplay
can hardly complain whenever it crops up elsewhere.
That’s especially true because he dropped his real name
for his birth certificate reads Robert Zimmerman
and I wonder: what if his favorite poet were
Robert Frost instead of the thirsty Dylan Thomas,
unstoppering by a snowy wood when he got dry?
Would he now be Robert Robert, and wouldn’t people
have confused him early on with Robbie Robertson?
Or perhaps to avoid that, he would have a nickname:
not Boss or King or Slowhand, but something evoking
a singer of poetry—maybe Oral Roberts
But, oops, that would be even worse because there is that
pompadoured Oklahoma preacher, once the healer
of arthritic elbows and the occasional plague
of boils afflicting the odd Old Testament martyr
to whom Bildad appeared with a shopping cart laden
with lizards, locusts, and stinging scorpions and said
Take this, Job, and shove it, but the tiny wheels bogged down
in sand, leaving him lamenting to leprous laymen
I’ll bet you this never happened to Jeremiah!
Meanwhile, in the eighties, Dylan found the messiah
But it was floral moral Oral who said he saw
a hundred foot Jesus saying: raise me more geetus.
Now, I’m no dyspeptic skeptic, but I’ve never seen
Jesus at all, though I feel his presence at Christmas
Still, if his standing height in yards was the same as his
age when he hung on the cross, you could get him to hold
up your TV antenna, and I’ll bet you would get
immaculate reception. Of course I’d be cautious,
though I’m not sacrilegious, about standing too close
for fear of the lightning . . . but really I’m not worried
If God hurled thunderbolts like mythical Zeus, He might
take a shot at preachers for profit, who fudge truth and
fiddle the books like Nero selling fire insurance
But God lets us make our mistakes and have some fun, too
Ben Franklin, our frequently foundering father, said
beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us
to be happy, and I would hasten to agree, though
Franklin’s faith was not my own, for he was mere Deist
not a Eucharistic fellow with chips for his brew
and thus never tasted my Mother’s divinity
by William B. Robison
Dry
boney anorexic soul has no breath
no intake at all, its exhalation
is only the gasp of the punctured corpse
stake in the breast of the vampire yielding
a pitiful puff of fetid staleness
even the putrefaction half-hearted
too little essence for a full-fledged stink
skin like the sun-dried membrane of bat’s wings
stretched out thinly over bones so tightly
that a pinprick, unleashing fierce surface
tension, might fling fleshless flaps skittering
o’er skeleton, ripped cello-wrap beating
hasty retreat from desiccated meat
balloon stuff fraying round a vacuum void
vaporless vault of the leathery shrew
no sweat, no tears, no mucus, no moisture
none of the warm wetness of womanhood
blood congealed, condensed, evaporated
even her venom a fine dry powder
her slithering the sound of sandpaper
scraping crass across a rough surfaced stone
so little like women damp with desire
or kissed with chastity’s milder juices
lachrymal in laughter, languor, or lust
dabbed, licked, lapped up, but never wiped away
unafraid to lactate, expectorate
perspire, no bleached sinews or oil-less hair
breathing visible heat in the chill air
tiny droplets of spirit escaping
ectoplasm distilling its essence
lovers soak up this liquor like sponges
in the meantime, seedless, the arid husk
parches in her non-porous poverty
by William B. Robison
ethicist
the woman drinks milk
in a Chinese restaurant
says Derrida is
becoming an ethicist
barely touches her
dish of spicy lobster sauce
crawfish and onions
deconstructed for nothing
by William B. Robison
Shroud
At dusk
in the dirt
near the mouth
of the tomb
lie
the wrappings
of Lazarus
abandoned
in ecstasy
A slight figure
scurries
whisks them
away
scrubbing
in the current
till fingertips
are sanguine
spreads them
on a rock
to dry
in the morning
Later she
laves
her brother’s bowl
rinses
the cup Martha
left
on the table and
sweeps
up the crumbs
spilled
by her visitor
by William B. Robison
Troubadour
The troubadour has got no horse
so he rides to his gigs on a minstrel cycle
to fortnightly ovations and
all the roast meat he can carry on a dagger
The acrobats hang upside down
tumblers half fool, naked juggler vainglorious
fat clowns send up tight wirewalkers
the ragged trampoline springs a trapeze artist
In the land Budapest controls
at a mineral spa for well-hung Aryans
Dan’s ignoble Lord of Gdansk
shows his steps to ill cons on Lion Tamer Lane
Full tilt a whirling dervish
curves nervously, swerves, observes no perversions but
ecdysiasts in Gaza strip
and Persian rug rats scare Indian elephants
Through the door comes the troubadour
jester in the vesture besmirches the churches
misrule measures its meter but
the inverse poet is averse to reverses
by William B. Robison
William Robison teaches history at Southeastern Louisiana University; writes about early modern England, including The Tudors in Film and Television with Sue Parrill; is a musician and filmmaker; and has poems accepted by Amethyst Arsenic, amphibi.us, Anemone Sidecar, Apollo’s Lyre, Asinine Poetry, Carcinogenic Poetry, decomP magazinE, Forge, Mayday Magazine, On Spec, and Paddlefish.
