January 2016 | poetry
I once walked calmly through the cold, dark woods
Not afraid of what could have lied ahead
Strapped to my cold back were my gear and goods
Far away from any cottage or bed
I went to be alone with just my mind
Needing some time for me to clear my thoughts
It was not long before my head aligned
And I finally got what I had sought
Walking this path taught me one simple fact
That in a place where dark and evil creaks
You always find what always seemed abstract
And you find out that you are not so weak
A place alone is a place to find peace
A place alone is for your mind’s release
by Trevor Tyma
January 2016 | poetry
Watercolors
Some days I’m convinced
It’s the pain that makes me real.
Reminding me I’m breathing.
That I am happy to be here.
That I am strong… but some days
Some days it spits and hisses,
and I just can’t love it when I feel so fragile.
It is replaying a slow beautiful loop of misery
Thundering down paper skin
sparks are bursting through the surface
and they are arranging themselves
into prickly and asymmetrical patterns
I close my eyes and I am rocking gently
counting the notes of this symphony
but my breath is coming in waves again
Those wild gulps are cresting the dam I’ve built
A dam made of “I can do it”s and porcelain
For a moment I give in and lean against it
Pressing my cheek on the cold reality of it
Hoping it will hold a while longer
But I can feel it giving, rubble is littering my lap again.
I’m trying to bite back a weakness
but my face heats as I feel the tears
It’s gone feral again
and in all its uncontrolled glory
It is flinging ugliness at my skin
It splatters and spreads like watercolors
Painting everything I touch a sick eggplant color
and leaving copper on my bitten tongue
Because I don’t look fucking sick Do I?!
I’m a tough girl!
It’s been this way so long…
Haven’t I gotten used to it?
Some days
Well, some days it just surprises me
You See Yourself
i see you, i see you seeing yourself
i wish I could see if you pick at the fuzz
on the arm of your sweater
when you read what I write,
that’s what I imagine
and yes I imagine too much
so much
picnics and fresh air and fresh fruit and fresh smiles
dark nights and warm fires and
really
good
books,
books that you might actually read,
because you read things.
and you would remind me that i imagine too much
so much
but its never quite enough
i find myself spinning in your footsteps
like a vacuum
picking up whatever you have dropped
breathing it in with a whir and a grin
because like a vacuum,
yes either kind,
i am hungry
and empty
and always trying to fill myself
with
your
self
and if i was a betting woman,
and i am,
i would place money on the he loves you petals
because he does
at least in some small way
or you wouldn’t be reading this,
you wouldn’t be trying to figure out
how to stuff all these very visible feelings
back in between lines,
the lines i read between to get them.
Maybe we speak different languages,
maybe you don’t speak…
i worry a lot,
so much,
i should start a therapy group.
i wouldn’t invite you
of course
you would already occupy so much of that hour.
by Raychelle Lodato
Raychelle Lodato is a 36yr-old mother, wife, and poet who writes under the names Cybilseyes and Diminished.Me
January 2016 | poetry
Broken Main
Someone from Taft Hall calls it in:
flooded grass, stranded cars.
More trouble with the water main.
Every week, the old iron pipe
rusts through somewhere and bursts,
swamping campus lawns and parking lots.
Same old, same old, says the boss
when we reach the scene, three of us
squeezed onto the truck’s bench seat,
staring at the task ahead.
Water bubbles from a spring hole
and spills down the sidewalk.
Lot A has turned into a small lake.
Years ago it was all play time,
splashing around in pools like this.
With the blackbirds I looked for worms;
then an afternoon at the creek
waiting for fish to bite.
Now sloshing is part of the job.
Turn off the main, drive down to the shop,
wait for the water to recede a bit.
Lunch and Paul Harvey on the radio
until the boss says, Max and Stephens
get on up there, dig us a hole.
With each shovelful, water sucks back in.
Boots soak through, feet prune up.
An hour later, our little triad stares down
at exposed pipe, a six-inch split.
Max kneels in the muck to work the hacksaw.
The boss heads back to the shop to fetch some parts.
People watch our work from office windows,
sipping coffee, looking cool in air conditioning.
One suit grins and gives the thumbs-up.
We’re still at it when the secretaries
leave for the day. The boss doffs his hat
and says Ma’am as they pass.
We watch them mince down the sidewalk,
gingerly picking a path around puddles.
The prettiest one slips off her shoes
and tiptoes barefoot to an islanded Mustang—
a real beauty, one slick ride.
Come on now, the boss says,
no looking at the ladies.
We got work to do.
Another four hours and
the busted pipe’s replaced,
the hole refilled, the lawn spruced up.
The summer sun has already set.
Turning on the main again, we know
the next weak spot down the line
will start to feel the pressure,
ready to burst. Give it a week
and we’ll find out where.
Visiting the Asylum
Noises outside: the beating of wings,
a persistent caw, caw, caw.
From the window I see
the evening sun—bloody
through the branches of a dead tree,
a crow perched near the top,
a groundskeeper crossing the leaf-filled lawn.
What did I expect to learn,
making this pilgrimage
just to visit his former room?
There’s passing chatter in the corridor,
the clacking wheels of a cart.
Somewhere a phone rings and rings,
a door clicks shut, footsteps fade.
Did he, too, hear the bird’s mockery?
Did it foretell renewed anxieties,
the advent of the crisis moment?
Did he stumble to this pane,
peering through the mist
of breath on glass, wondering
who called his name?
I imagine the anguish
when desperate for an answer
from God he gazed
upon this hysterical crow
and the black-garbed groundskeeper
now steadfastly lowering the flag.
by Stephen Cloud
After kicking around the West for a while (with stops in Spokane, Flagstaff, and Sedona), Stephen Cloud has settled in Albuquerque, where he’s fixing up an old adobe, working on poems, and pondering the official New Mexico state question: “Red or green?” Recent publications include work in Valparaiso Poetry Review, High Desert Journal, New Madrid, Shenandoah, and Tar River Poetry.
January 2016 | poetry
It’s curious about the massed communicants,
not the few tied and suited boys, especially,
but the virginally, wedding-gowned girls
in lace and taffeta, prim alabaster angels
now pledged, going steady with the Church.
Are they truly knowledgeable at their age
to know right from wrong and to distinguish
heaven’s wine and manna from fruits of evil?
Mass ends and the newly sated pass
slowly, processing down the aisle;
at least one pre-nun, guided between
beaming parents, head tilted back, eyes
tight shut, hands still clasped in devotion,
is graced by the faith of incomprehension.
by Richard Hartwell
Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather be still tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon.
January 2016 | poetry
Becoming Aware of the Tide
Just today I feel older
Driving to the vet
Driving 17 miles for a hat I left behind
at a monthly meeting
Listening to a folk-rock album
awash in distracted serenity
Ebbing as soon
as it draws attention
Coleridge Stares at the Sea in Search of Star Ratings
We accept sponges
as they line up along our shores
Hate the sand-
glasses up, lying for the sun
Hate the strain-
bags happy to gulp burn
Melt over mogul diamonds buried
deep enough to require faith
by Mark Danowsky
Mark Danowsky’s poetry has appeared in Alba, Cordite, Grey Sparrow, Mobius, Shot Glass Journal, Third Wednesday and other journals. Mark is originally from the Philadelphia area, but currently resides in North-Central West Virginia. He works for a private detective agency and is Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.
