October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
miss xanax
(originally published in The Battered Suitcase Nov. ’08)
She says
“you don’t have to watch”
As she gets things ready
Cellophane wrapper from a cigarette pack
A lighter
A cut straw
The pills
She says
“you don’t have to watch
But I need to do this”
Takes the pills
Places them on the glass top table
Places the cellophane wrapper over them
Slides the lighter in slight crunches
The pale pink pills turn to dust
She says
“you’re not going to cry are you?”
She takes an ID in which she’s smiling
Says she’s an organ donor
But she won’t give me her heart
The card cuts lines
Leaves trails of thin dust behind
Dirty honey hair hangs down to the glass
the straw jerks moving slow then fast
She says
“you’re not going to cry are you?”
I lie to her for the first time
that legendary divorce
(originally published in E2K July 2004)
summer in america
the land of milk and
honey not tonight
I have a headache
and I hate you
and I can’t put it into words
but one small push
like kids on a swing
thinking that they can touch the sky and I
might kill you
for making me forget
what love is
or is supposed to be
or that I even want it
anne frank, homecoming queen
(originally published in Skyline Magazine Winter 06/07)
now that we’re here
in the place we fear the most
lacking the voice
to ever call this home
we’re whispers in the mouth of the door
we hide inside the walls
they’re coming in…
I’ll hold your hand
and the world
the world is a photograph
and the world
the world is under glass
and she knows where nothing is
the broken geometry of her star
and we know where nothing is
it rips the hearts from greeting cards
(we’ll use the words they waste
as long as we have them)
and the world
the world is a photograph
and the world
the world is under glass
we hide inside the walls
they’re coming in…
I’ll hold your hand
we’re butterflies and the door is ajar
louisa
(originally published in The Storyteller Oct/Nov/Dec 2005)
I bet you’re beautiful
before the mirror wakes up
before the sun fills its silver cup
what do you have up your sleeve
besides a bruise?
where would you be if you could choose?
and the hands move
mechanically
to apply make-up and remove sleep
and eyeshadow implies
some light from inside
and something in it’s way
(the days start like cars
in this parking lot life
we cough and crawl off
towards some distant light
and the cold smoke just hangs in the air
daring anyone half awake to attempt to care)
what do you have up your sleeve
but a bruise
baby where would you be if you could choose?
I bet you’re beautiful
before the mirror wakes up
by Joe Quinn
Joe Quinn is a 34 year old American Poet. He has been published 60+ times in over 30 publications around the world. His poetry collections are available to purchase for $10 at lulu.com/spotlight/welcomehomeironlung and he can be followed at @joequinnpoetry on twitter or at facebook.com/joequinnpoetry
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
The Midnight of His Mind
As he speaks to me
Of his troubles,
Someone I know
Stands in a doorway
That connects two
Rooms: the past
And the future.
The past is painful
To look at,
And the future
Seems so
Far away,
But both
Are steeped in
Shadows where
A few lights
Softly flicker
And die away.
Ni Zan’s Remote Streams and Cold Pines
I.
Wandering far
From the city, I
Followed her,
Captivated
By her hips’
Graceful
Movements,
Until she ran
Too far ahead
Of me, for me
To find her
Anywhere.
II.
Instead, I come
To find autumn
Emptiness,
Sparse leaves,
Gently flowing
Streams, the broad
Expanse of the sky
Without clutter,
Calming. I point
To the mountain
In the distance.
I look away
For a moment,
And it’s gone.
The Dead Sparrow Patterns
Down the stairs. Out the door.
Dead sparrow. Time for work.
Back from work. Dead sparrow.
Up the stairs. The day is done.
The blue light of the morning.
On the sidewalk. Dead sparrow.
The red glow of the evening.
Home is near. Dead sparrow.
For days. Still dead. Still there.
The sparrow lies coldly on his side.
I suspect the weather confused him.
Sun one day. Snow the next.
I pity his poor decisions,
So like a person’s.
It makes me think. Of mistakes,
Of patterns of mistakes. In theory,
If one understands the patterns,
One will be able to perceive
The right time: to escape
The patterns. Of mistakes.
by Joshua Paul Bocher
Joshua Paul Bocher’s poetry has appeared in such journals as Illuminations, The Germ, and The East Coast Literary Review. He has degrees in writing and literature from Brown and Harvard. Previously, he lived abroad in Taiwan for two and a half years. Currently, he lives with his wife in Somerville, MA and works for non-profits in the Boston area.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Invisible Creatures
Orange laranjas, seis reais. The afternoon in Copacabana has sunscreen bottles and pharmacies. Near a tree, passengers wait at the bus stop. Secretly, I am naked in Portuguese. After a day at the beach, I drink coffee, and eat cheese buns. There is violence in Brazil, yes, but there is also so much more. Where I live, the snow falls occasionally, and the rain freezes my fingers. In spite of the dead trees, I desire the arrival of the summer, while I have fantasies of walking barefoot on soft sand, intimate with the invisible creatures of the heat. In that same life, I watch soap operas online and miss my family, when shopping in the organic supermarket. The privilege is to wish for tropical fruits while they still last. Hold onto the flavor as though they were pearls, unique and precious.
Latitude
The sun explodes in the canvas
of an unfinished painting,
a muscular entropy of the heart.
The brush is left alone in the dark,
as she lies naked in bed, empty
of imagination.
The latitude of an image
circumscribes the roughness of being.
Hunger for Tropical Things
She wakes up, acorda, with an intense necessity to devour tropical things. “In winter, the search for the sun is insana,” he says, finding it important to explain everything with statistics. “It is the foreigner’s syndrome,” he concludes, the paper in his hands. I don’t understand what you are saying. “If someone likes fruits, it is normal to miss pineapples,” she replies, “simple like that.” I feel much closer to myself when I have this conviction.
by Desirée Jung
Desirée Jung is a Canadian-Brazilian writer. Her work aims to stress the boundaries within languages. Desirée has published translations, fiction and poetry in Exile, The Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Antagonish Review, The Haro, The Literary Yard, Black Bottom Review, Gravel Magazine, Tree House, Bricolage, Hamilton Stone Review, Ijagun Poetry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Storyacious, Perceptions, Loading Zone, and others. Desirée has participated in several artist residencies, including the Banff Centre, in Canada, and Valparaiso, in Spain. She worked with Canadian poet George McWhirter in her M.F.A in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Moreover, her research and Ph.D. thesis in Comparative Literature was based in the works of Canadian poet P. K. Page. More information can be found on her website, desireejung.com
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
I’d like a Sunday
like a Mary Oliver
poem, with a few
perfect words and
lots of white space,
and paper with
a high rag content
and maybe some
righteous soy-based ink.
It would be a leaf
in one of her spare
little collections, with
a fine old lithograph
from the public domain
on the cover,
one that recalled the idyllic
Transcendentalist woods
of Thoreau and Emerson
and John Muir.
I’d like to stare
at the few
perfect words
close up with
my glasses off
and appreciate the clean
edges of the fine
big print and feel
like I’m in church,
the good part, when
the church is empty
and there’s only
silence and the sound
of my own breath.
by Will Walker
Will’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alabama Literary Review, Bark, Crack the Spine, Forge, Passager, Pennsylvania English, Rougarou, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Slow Trains, Studio One, and Westview. His chapbook, Carrying Water, was published by Pudding House Press, and his full-length collection, Wednesday After Lunch, is a Blue Light Press Book Award Winner (2008). He received a bachelor’s degree in English history and literature from Harvard University, and over the last decade, he has attended numerous writing workshops with Marie Howe, Thea Sullivan, Gail Mazur, Robert Pinsky, Allen Shapiro, and Mark Doty. Will was also an editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and when not putting pen to paper, he enjoys placing bow on string and playing the cello.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Subtle Way
A wave does not regret crashing on the shore
and a lightning bolt does not care
which tree it splits in two,
the same way the river
never notices the hill
it has carried away,
or the fog
the ship it has led
to a rocky grave.
You,
you are a force of nature
that sweeps over me,
that buries me entirely
and like snow piled high
on the empty cabin’s roof,
you don’t even notice me
collapse under your weight.
Mondays
This morning,
a car horn screamed
from the street below.
Standing in my room
wearing a towel
and with a toothbrush in my mouth,
I screamed back.
by John Taylor Pannill
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Philosophy
I spoke to you of dirt
and broken thumbnails, of salt
in tears and potholes.
I spoke of popcorn
ceilings with sticky sheets
underneath.
You spoke to me of stars
and aether currents, of birds
on radio airwaves.
You spoke of treetop
houses with telescopes
to the sky.
The Electronic Age
We drove by dark and planet deities
Riding the road chasing down reason
Like some great thing.
We captured the sun in a fiberglass bottle
An electric ambrosia consuming sins
Like gods.
Pact
I think my drinking days are catching up
with me, the old man said and poured
more whiskey in his coffee pot.
The man shook. Under his feet
the cat lapped blood
off the floor.
The old man saw the stars of hell
hanging from the ceiling, sucking
out the color
from his hair.
Another week, another one to spill
into the kitchen sink, another
sacrifice to fight the stars
and pool under the floorboards
for the cat to drink.
by Nicole Kurlich
Nicole Kurlich is a student from Northeast Ohio. She is currently pursuing an Associate of Arts degree at Lakeland Community College.
