April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Leaps
Free fall. A star
Flashing through the universe.
Arms spread to angel wings,
The ripcord at the last possible moment,
Then floating like an autumn leaf.
Or that umbilical cord,
Off a cliff headfirst the way a hawk
Dives for its prey. The bounce to signal
The end of adventure.
Surge of adrenalin. Veins rivering
In flood. Heart as full as love
Could measure. Every muscle timed
To perfection in the pit
Of the belly where cells muster.
Man on a bridge
Nervously pacing before swinging
A leg over the rail. Balancing precariously
As if considering. What thoughts
Race as he plummets knowing
No halo of salvation can open
Above him like a bright flower,
No stretch of imagination
To seize his ankles and hold him.
More Bad News
Here comes the Andromeda Galaxy
Destined to smash the Milky Way
In four billion years. One more thing
To worry about along with taxes,
Unemployment, college tuition, decline
Of the liberal arts, bankruptcy of Medicare,
Pension plans, Social Security, moral
Integrity, faith and love.
We lie awake in our white beds
Of starfall counting the disasters
About to befall generations
Still quivering in our cells. However,NASA
Predicts a merger rather than pure devastation:
Milkomeda, an enormous cow
Of a daughter chained to rock
But rescued by Perseus. So there’s always hope
That earth may be spared, though by then our sun
Is a cauldron filled with our ashes. Another thing
To trouble about as the skies pale
Behind the blinds.
by Joan Colby
Joan Colby is an award-wining writer who has been widely published in journals including Poetry, Atlanta Review, GSU Review, Portland Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, Mid-American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Kansas Quarterly, The Hollins Critic, Minnesota Review, Western Humanities Review, College English, Another Chicago Magazine and others.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
After Iowa flood:
New shades of brown.
First shade of brown: dead grass
Brunettes giving up
Lying prone in parks.
Second shade of brown:
Outdoor metals
Prisoners of iron oxide
And empty museums.
Dark second skins grew and spread
Into scar tissue.
Third shade of brown: the enemy itself-
The Iowa River.
Now the color of
Everything that wasn’t supposed to be there.
A tree lay on its side: roots unable to grapple
Earth aid.
Brown: the color of death.
Smell is alive and well.
So much dankness. Which sounds like stank.
Being green is too much work.
The sun, so uncaring.
by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens is an emerging poet who was recently published in Issue #10 of Superstition Review and has poems forthcoming in Emerge Literary Journal , Red Savina Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine and The Apeiron Review.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
mid century
novelty shifts the angle
of what passed for innovation
and libels the new millennium
in shades of modern avocado
and simple teak
what was a keen nostalgia
for an egg shaped elegance
and those clean primary
reds is now a blink
in the machinery of connection
a paper lantern nodding yellow
concessions to the exposed
beam of your adolescence
as if lighting up all that spent
relish will leave you no choice
but to lean into the pecan wood
console and lift the sound arm
to retire that wall of 33⅓
memos to yourself
track by track
Haunt Me
Half a century gone
and the Ouija board is still
uncertain. As if the whole
neighborhood of ghosts
traversed my geographic
map from outset to reason,
exiting its own expired alphabet.
Power of Attorney
I don’t think we should speak
until I can shore up my resolve
against the optimism that rides
me like a shadow, loots my own good
sense and folds a feeble charm
into my reply. This repudiation
is overdue, but what should ring
like iron truth pitched against your latest epic
fable falls to a silent incantation,
a hiss in the apparatus
of our conversation, a grace note harmony
to the myth you love to repeat.
That you now hold the lady in the tower
is new to both of us and though I cannot weave
her escape into any believable advantage, I see
now that you are a fairy come to defraud me
in both worlds and I must be Switzerland,
chilly, dispassionate and unarmed.
by Sara Clancy
Sara Clancy is from Philadelphia and graduated from the writer’s program at the University of Wisconsin long ago. Among other places, her poems have appeared in The Madison Review, The Smoking Poet, Untitled Country Review, Owen Wister Review, Pale Horse Review and Houseboat, where she was a featured poet. She lives in the Desert Southwest with her husband, their dog and a 21 year old goldfish named Darryl.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
“Anything goes tonight, my girl. Come on,
have another. What are we here for, dear lady?
Copulation is the only philosophy and
carnival its enabler. If you promise
not to move I’ll get you another flute
of champagne. My dear, we can leave.
I know a charming place just behind
Hackescher Markt. This is Berlin, you know.”
A Pierrot sways against the door frame,
stares drunken desire, mouth bent
into predator’s disappointment,
leans over the railing and vomits the first half
of an unsuccessful night.
Endless festing before Ash Wednesday –
nights of excess. The windows drip
yellow light and blue notes.
A tall Columbine clatters down the stairs
wrapped in a cape made from starlight.
She is running now, her high heels impeding
a fast getaway, her tracks clearly visible
in the first snow. No taxis anywhere.
She slips and slides towards the snow-decked
fire hydrant, its plump little arms outstretched
in a gesture of expectation. As her head
cracks open like a ripe fruit broken,
her purse spills condoms and pepper spray.
The snow reddens around her face.
Very slowly she relaxes.
The best party ever.
by Rose Mary Boehm
A German-born UK national, Rose Mary Boehm, short-story and novel writer, copywriter, photographer and poet, now lives and works in Lima, Peru. Two novels and a poetry collection (TANGENTS) have been published in the UK. Her latest poems have appeared – or are forthcoming – in US poetry reviews. Among others: 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… For her photographs see: http://www.bilderboehm.blogspot.com/
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
She sits at the wheel pulling cold balls of clay
centering us on the bat, foot gently feeding the pedal
pressing out our densities, opening our centers
turning us into simple vessels
built for filling.
I want to be your favorite soup-bowl
a singing teapot.
But the world is still creating us—
glazing & firing us until we have no more water, or we give up
or until someone plucks us from the kiln saying,
“You, perfect little vessel, are just what I need.”
When that happens, you are no longer organic
no longer molding Earth: you are Art, capitol A.
That’s what I want to be so fucking bad
but I’ll settle for plate. I’ll sit permanently on your bathroom sink holding your soap.
I’m just tired of being only leather-tough
sick of the world forming & decorating & tattooing designs on me.
Please, just put me on the shelf. Cracked
blemished, unfinished—I want to be useful, I want to be a vessel
I want to know my name and practicality
I want to carry something for you.
by Jacob Collins-Wilson
Jacob Collins-Wilson, a high school English teacher, has had poetry published in Pathos Literary Magazine as well as a short essay published by 1 Bookshelf.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
I.
His legs are twined
with the branch
below him as
if they were
just another knot
taught to him
by his father
when he was
a young boy
II.
I know a girl
who wears innocence
like a sundress,
setting each night
over her ankles
and I know
that there is a boy
with kerosene
in his eyes
that she turns to
and sometimes
I know the boy
and sometimes
that boy is me
III.
We perched
the same branch
like two birds
huddling close
in the depths of winter,
for the music.
Swear, for the music.
Beautiful falsetto.
IV.
My heart is tinder
and the quiet man
that built his home there
this past winter
paces slowly
and with a limp
His footsteps
fall on dry
sticks
and paper
the sound echoing
off of my ribcage amphitheater
and from far away
I’m sure it sounds
like a heartbeat
V.
Old age
just the wisps of
cinder gray above
my head
and in my heart,
trying to remember
themselves auburn
before the fire
VI.
The cartographer stumbles
past slowly:
his legs stiff,
heels clicking
with the ground
like the strikes of a
drafting compass;
and with his every step
earth measures him back.
VII.
I like to practice dying.
Sometimes I lay
down and carve tree trunks, my name scratched six
feet above my head
and admired
by the procession ants
that pause one
by one to
pay their respects
I like to walk
through the forest
looking at the names
that my mother thought about giving me
but didn’t
and wonder if they
are practicing too
VIII.
The gardener cups his thumb on the head of his hose.
When the sun is out
he works alone,
watering the seeds
that his son will
buy one day
from a florist near
8th street and
lay over his grave
IX.
Nothing smells
more like beauty
than rain
on asphalt
Nothing looks so good
as the sun
shining through pollution
At 6 p.m.
Nothing sounds so pretty
as horse hair
and pernambuco
pulled back and forth
in a sea of G major, maple, spruce, and metal strings
as we were the currents
that held them in their sway
by Simon Rhee
Simon Rhee has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Stoneboat Journal, Do Not Look at the Sun, Mania Magazine, Visions with Voices, Red Ochre Lit Mini Chapbook, Line Zero Poetry Finalist, and Mary Ballad Poetry Prize Finalist.
