January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
It Was Just a House
It was the year in which the plumbing went bad
That the beloved house, feeling perhaps neglected, began to reveal itself in ways
It had previously chosen to keep to itself, the dead, and the demented.
Redwood, granite, level-set oak floors and an emptied bedroom emanating puffs
of white smoke
Where the man who plowed the best break,
Seam
and furrow
Once lay,
Yellow teeth bared in the ineffable discomfort
Of Active Dying.
Where the gentlest woman had clawed
Him in the chest before being gentled off to a place notable for its nurses, her hair growing longer and whiter as out
Through the locks leaked the lady inside.
Observe (my brother and I) merely attempting to plug a leak above the kitchen sink.
In our Grandparents’ home.
It seemed to have sprung as a watery reminiscence from underneath
Green tile, the slab of cement, the redwood four by sixes.
Perhaps the flooding was — in truth — the final rusted fountain of memories we sought
To contain between our wet fingers
We couldn’t get at the pipes; each fat inch of wall so cemented — the facts
Obscured by the forgotten rose garden,
The desiccated orange tree, bark falling off in
surrendering strips
Distributing a few final white petals
About the bronzed lawn.
It was just a house–blessed with a solidity we each still sought
And rusted pipes elusive as cats. (What plumber
Could we have called?) Stopping ourselves short of prying up the floorboards,
Surreptitiously a large luminousness crept in: the leak sprung to provide proofs of what was essential if not entirely enduring.
Tall, ladylike poinsettias bursting crimson by the white double-hung dining room windows,
Big beamed redwood. Granite, horse-carted down from high mountains to pillar
The place.
Cigar smoke off the back porch, fresh squeezed lemonade, cherry pie cooling on the sill,
White bathrobes, Pendleton caps, bamboo fly rods, five irons, Saturday morning Pancakes from scratch and just the four of us in a tidy yellow kitchen.
No sound but the sound of batter bubbling quietly to itself.
Such a Fish
Do you remember the big trout
You caught that summer afternoon
Out on the little lake, hardly more than a
Pond of green and sweetly susurrous waters
In the mountain valley, we had
A small wind, a hot sun, an aluminum row boat your Dad
Could barely manage but
Our lines were tight
Your fine blonde hair lifted by that small wind
Suddenly your slender arms strove
As the rod doubled over and the fine feathery line
Ran like an excitement off the reel and all three hearts beat and once
He even leaped into our world,
Clear of the water
Red and silver and shining like someone’s future
When you were seven and I forty two and we had tight lines
When
Small girls could be happy for hours
After catching
Such a fish.
I Watch You Rise
Now, fifty summers behind me,
I come, at last, to worship you.
From my narrowed kitchen window
I watch you rising in ever higher,
Ever-reaching ranks, Tai Chi to the wind.
I see only now what has long been written:
That you leap back
Ever green, ever graceful
No matter how flattened
No matter how fierce or feral
The hammering of the wind;
That your roots snicker at stump grinder, axe,
Poison, pesticide, salt, even the casting of spells;
That excavation will be as foolish a pursuit
As imprisoning wind. You,
(One of three friends in winter,
Sanctuary from evil)
And the woman inside you
Await, a still field of fallen snow,
Your sole exuberance of flowering.
If but one fine fingerling
Of root remains
Up you jump:
Rising ineradicable and readied,
Supple and slender-leafed,
Reaching to hook the sky,
As I brew the morning coffee, bamboo.
—Ian D. Campbell
January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
What shall comfort us creatures
and offer salve to our sorrow now?
Never those pubescent-speaking
military men who merely glance
in lieu of glaring. Never those
revolting, crippling contrivances
that never set eyes on spirits on
solid ground, nor infantries, trust-
worthy, uninformed in uniforms;
infectiously inexperienced.
Corruption begets corruptions,
atrocity reciprocates atrocity.
What prevailing evil winds &
complicitous joining of forces
might accomplish, alleviating
the longings of the pauperised
for despots to transfer loathing
into power, we will never come
to fully comprehend.
Hell! Even Mephistopheles lurks
in some shadow of doubt. Our
peripheral vision is veiled if we
fail to wince, hesitate to take
a breather, ruminate, and look at
the larger panoramic view.
Everything is labyrinthine.
All seems crooked, convoluted.
Nothing at all is ever deliberately
straight forward.
—Gregory Wm. Gunn
Gregory Wm. Gunn grew up in small towns throughout Ontario before moving to London in 1970. Writing for over thirty years, he is most passionate about poetry. To date, Mr. Gunn has had poems published in Inscribed Magazine, Green’s Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly, Yes, Poetry, Wordletting Magazine, Songs for Every Race, Ditch Magazine, Ascent Aspirations, Steel Toe Review, Carcinogenic, The Light Ekphrasic, Cyclamens and Swords, et al. Also published are five collections of his selected poetry.
January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
There are some days when more strength is needed than others
and today is one of those days.
I do not know
why it happens but sometimes I awaken
and feel that Hell
is at the cusp of my bed,
And if I step too hastily I shall fall
for millions of miles
into the mouth of the nether-gods.
So I tiptoe around it.
I stand and I stretch
as though I have the limbs of a giant.
Yes, of a giant—but I shall need those limbs
today, because today is one of those days.
I forgo the oatmeal
and drink dragon’s blood instead,
“Yes, there it is,” I say, taking it from the cupboard,
in the canister behind the herbs
labeled The Blood of Dragons.
I tread lightly to the basin
and brush my teeth with Caligula’s ash.
I shower in the spittle
of an ancient deity (though choosing
one is always the difficult part).
I go to my closet and open the heavy doors hewn
from blackened wood and choose my armor.
For I must wear something that withstands
the fire of negativity;
the sharpness of stupid tongues;
the putrid mind; the living World.
I flank myself in an armor stitched
with Medusa’s hair,
and my helmet, usually made of wool or felt, is
now made from the bone
of Pegasus’s skull.
I go to my looking glass
and behold the wonder I have made
of myself.
I forgive the spectacle
of it all,
“Because I shall need it much,” I say.
I decide to forgo my vitamins
and down a handful of fingernails
pulled from the hand of Richard III.
This dissolves well, I find,
with a shot of Shakespeare’s bile.
Yes, I think, now I am ready
to face the day!
But before I pass over the threshold,
I stop and do the sign of the cross
thinking it can’t hurt. After all,
I shall need it much today.
—Gabriel “G” Garcia
January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
When armed with an arsenal
Of ideas bigger than bombs
And words that are piercing as arrows
Quivering
With swelling anticipation
Like the tide, it crests
When faced with a blank white page
You wait for the explosion
The crash of the ocean wave
It destroys the castles you have built
But you call it
Creation.
—Emily Faison
January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
every night
the moon slurs, smiles
leering compliance, consenting
out of the corner
of her face.
at midnight,
I am less, after just one more test.
regretted by the bashful
sun, at midday, his light lets learning in
from a drunk,
swallowing sex — drinking down below
all morals, creating cause, causing effect,
from all unwritten words, learned, taught, spoken, now unlearned,
in the lush lavished unloved love of leaving after love.
sinking in sleeping, in thoughtlessness, in godlessness, in this.
Thoughts of a romantic on a bar stool
Chasing confusing conversations through a perplexing patron performing a grand
symphony, dancing around the idea that we all precipitate ideals, intertwined in
the vastness of human decency, which struggles below the weight of each word,
willingly wasteful, during listless listing,
slip and sip to
life’s many intricacies as my illustrations
interpret illusions on behalf of our subconscious, detailing the horizon, as chasing
the light in the day that you can never capture, before birthing the benevolent
breaking of beliefs, with thoughts of thirst to lust, to love, to long for all that can
not be between you and me.
Why you should drink slow
anyone who makes a coaster
Lonely
is a friend of you and
I
yet in between your draining
Drink
your stirring speech is
Slow
and then you perch
In a performing presence
presenting your questions of hell
you try to confirm your reservations
With a sad proclamation.
We all go out like we all come in we all go out alone.
Craig McCarthy’swork has appeared in The Normal Review and other national periodicals.
January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Life Springs
Sitting in a dark room
breeds thoughts of the soul
not to be indulged
the bliss of life lies
in the simple
the penetrating sunlight
pierces through the abyss
illuminating all the shadows
dank dark crevices
new life springs from death
to be reborn anew like
a butterfly its cocoon
Raspberry Bush
The raspberry bush
expanding full of life
seemed to offer
endless tart bounty
they were best picked
right from the vine
no need to rinse
or put in a fancy bowl
the red juices stained
your finger tips
a mark of remembrance
for their gifts
the gentle wind rustled
the leaves whispering to
the berries almost
begging for you to remember
—Kyle C Lucas
