January 2014 | back-issues, poetry
If there was a new way to dance, I hope
the first step is to give your last dollar
to a stranger. That you firmly hold
your partner’s hands and hips
while talking softly in the shower.
Instead of tapping your feet,
you’d pray for someone who isn’t eating enough.
You wouldn’t learn to breakdance, pop-and-lock, twerk:
but you’d savor a fresh cup of green tea and honey,
get sand beneath your toes while practicing
handstands on the beach, and take time for naps.
A new kind of dance, where there are no missteps
because there is no wrong way
to laugh heartily at a good joke,
kiss lovingly in a downpour after missing a train,
or watch a child learn to read.
In this dance, the music never stops
because cats don’t stop purring,
the wind will always blow over the grass,
while mothers coo at their babes, brothers argue
over who gets to be which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
as sisters joyfully sigh.
And in this new dance, no one is sitting. Everyone dances.
Every young man too shy to move
is greeted by a pretty smile.
Every elderly couple who thinks that
their dancing days are long behind them
find themselves singing while making
cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving with perfect rhythm.
And every girl who is timid
because they’ve danced with boys who have stepped on their toes
will find someone to write poetry with on planes.
by Max Henderson
Max Henderson is a doctoral student in physics at Drexel University. Originally from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, he researches neural networks and quantum computation when he’s not too busy watching Adventure Time. His poems are about making mistakes while drinking a good, dark beer. He has been published online in Black Heart Magazine, Crack The Spine, the Ampersand Review, and Citizen Brooklyn, and has work in Crack The Spine’s Spring 2013 Anthology.
October 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Self Non-Explanatory
When anyone asks me,
I invoke the great-great-uncle
with the walrus moustache
who was lost among the wilds of New Guinea,
believed eaten by cannibals.
Sometimes I even recall a movie I once saw,
retelling it so dramatically,
hands waving, voice loud,
I’m all the characters at once.
If people wish to know who I am,
I divert them with fading photographs in albums,
books about Europe in the nineteen century,
a piece of music played the night before
an army went into battle.
Do they really want to know
the places where I scratch,
the baseball team I root for,
my favorite character in “Friends”
Dig up that great-great uncle if you will
but I prefer to remain buried.
Wait for that movie to be rerun on TV,
just not the one where my leading role
was reduced to a minor character.
I’m indifferent to the soliloquy,
prefer the conversation of others.
There’s so much that isn’t me
and that’s a great place to start.
In Cell Phone City
The woman driving the car is on her cell phone.
She’s in heavy traffic, at least all but her voice, and her ears.
Her hearing is well out of reach of the blistering horns.
the grinding engines, the guy beside her streaming
cuss words into the smoggy air.
And her tongue has no interest in making comment
on the world around her: the rear bumper of the
Nissan crawling a foot or so ahead, the lights
swaying above, as slow to change as Galapagos turtles.
“Yes, I’ll be there at eight. Mandy’s baby is due any
day now. Roger doesn’t want to make a commitment.”
Suddenly, her accelerator foot makes the wrong choice.
Her Toyota thumps into that unfortunate Nissan.
It’s 7.30 in the morning. The accident occurs on time.
The other driver is hovering over her car, waving his fist.
Could be his way of making a commitment.
— John Grey
John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in International Poetry Review, Sanskrit and the science fiction anthology, “Futuredaze” with work upcoming in Clackamas Literary Review, New Orphic Review and Nerve Cowboy.
October 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Miss American Pie.
Don’t whisper.
White heat.
Excuse me while I break this chair.
The levee is extremely dry.
The trees will burn.
Sparks crisping against grey skies.
Snow melting around my feet.
Fusion of wires. Meltdown.
— Rose Mary Boehm
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm lives and works in Lima, Peru. Author of two novels and a poetry collection, her latest poems have appeared – or are forthcoming – in US poetry reviews. Toe Good Poetry, Poetry Breakfast, Morgen Bailey, Burning Word, Muddy River Review, Pale Horse Review, Pirene’s Fountain, Other Rooms, Requiem Magazine, Full of Crow, Poetry Quarterly, Punchnel’s, Avatar, Verse Wisconsin, Naugatuck River Review, Boston Literary, Ann Arbor etc.
October 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Letter to Rome
Back home, opening
an old letter
I received from you,
the front of the envelope,
post marked 1931
address washed out,
sent unspecified like
artifacts to archeologists.
The neatly folded paper
inside, written upon
graph paper of rectangles
I imagine it bears
news like I got a week after
I left you. Paul committed
suicide. maybe I love
history so much
because I like to see
that people get through
horrible events and
seeing blood, toothless
nooses, brackish intent.
I miss you.
Train
The modern art is an opening act
for the Sistine chapel.
After the school of Athens
and the heavenly patriarchs
there are women painters,
artists questioning paternity,
maybe just before the stairs
a painting shows the train
tracks into Auschwitz No
names it’s called, the white
lines leading into
darkness, the darkness covered
with numbers. A9448, A3769, subtle in the
foreground, glaring as your eye moves up
into the gloaming.
A foreboding yellow spot
on the top of the canvas reminds
of death.
The dead who have no names,
yes, but also the living that
were turned into numbers.
Most of the people around
move quickly towards fame,
the show’s zenith,
unsure if they recognize this image.
These very same who walked over
the swastika mosaicked
on the ground of the Hall of
Constantine the transience of
signs. Alteration, like with a dress,
has possibilities of beauty or disaster.
Rebirth not always positive.
Now we move from dark into
light and “remain silence please.”
— Maddie Boyd
October 2013 | back-issues, poetry
I typed my doctoral dissertation
in the driveway of our old
house in Ohio hoping for
a head start on my spring tan.
I sat in a nylon-webbed lawn chair
wearing my swim suit on a sunny
seventy degree afternoon.
My Smith-Corona electric typewriter
sat on two cases of empty Stroh’s
longneck beer bottles tethered by an
orange extension cord to an outlet in the garage.
Of course, I had a cold one
sitting beside me on the concrete
to sip between paragraphs.
The warmth made an onerous task more palatable
and drinking beer made me feel like a rebel.
My committee would have found
this scenario hateful; not befitting a scientist.
But after I graduated, I took a job at a major university
and cranked-out research for the next thirty years.
Today I plan to go outside with my laptop,
sit by the pool with a beer and write some poetry.
The elitists at prestigious poetry journals
would probably not approve.
I won’t always be writing about mythology, muses,
classic oil paintings or arcane issues in philosophy.
I won’t necessarily be structuring my verse
as a pantoum, sestina or villanelle.
But as a writer and a reader, I know
there is something to be said for enjoyment.
— William Ogden Haynes
William Ogden Haynes is a poet and author of short fiction from Alabama who was born in Michigan and grew up a military brat. His first book of poetry entitled Points of Interest appeared in 2012 and a second collection of poetry and short stories Uncommon Pursuits was published in 2013. Both are available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. He has also published over seventy poems and short stories in literary journals and his work has been anthologized multiple times.
October 2013 | back-issues, poetry
The physician fired my father
For insubordination.
Dad couldn’t regulate the dosage
Or himself.
He is hibernating in his room,
Eyes closed and face turned.
Suspended and silent,
Deep in thought.
— David S. Drabkin
