Buddha Minds On Fire

April 2013 | back-issues, poetry

Surrounded by the Buddha’s bounty,

a calming serenity hushes the crowd

as a docent provides a brief biography . . .

The bump of knowledge crowns his head with

Tightly bundled curls of second-growth hair,

Framed by long lobes stretched by gold earrings.

“Only real Buddhas have these three things!”

I hear her, but I wonder if it’s truly those that

make Buddhas something more than . . . men.

It is this “something more” in which to bask,

a golden warmth of subtle majesty renounced,

to shoulder the suffering of the world at large.

A larger world was what he sought,

the world of intense introspection,

in order to understand . . . himself.

With minds on fire and pillars of intellect,

exposed, crucified, pinned as for dissection,

performing mundane exercises, shoveling shit;

Bodhisattvas exchanging thoughts for actions,

expiring moment to moment in Phoenix flames,

waiting to be reborn . . . endlessly.    

by Richard Hartwell

Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school 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 poetry, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon

A Room

April 2013 | back-issues, poetry

This was not just a room – it was

A milestone- a first communion,

A crisp suit, a new car, a fresh haircut-

A blank set of blueprints on how to be human.

It was a field where shoes aren’t needed-

Where you break curfew and don’t care about

Time or memory, where everything stands

Still because your mouth can’t keep up with

Smiling it wants to do. Eyes speak more

Than hands because they meet others and know

That there’s no need to hide and blow lines

Off of picture frames holding the dead eyed stares

Of mistakes and regrets. This was a room,

Where a beautiful girl and I first met. 

by Michael Murray

Cinnamon

April 2013 | back-issues, poetry

A spicy seam, unraveled in a café, brunette with streaks. Jittering fingers unstitch brown and red; a smell like mad-heat buried in cheeks, flesh wild and fever-drenched. His lips are swollen on warm treats, but he stretches the peppered vein and drinks.

by Janae Green

Janae Green is a recipient of the 2nd Annual Gypsy Sachet Awards in Letters and Biography from Fiction Fix. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Atticus Review, Eunoia Review, Fiction Fix, Paper Darts, Poetry Quarterly, scissors and spackle, The Ofi Press, The Salmon Creek Journal, Turk’s Head Review, and forthcoming in various online and print literary journals. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, artist Shea Bordo.

Wabi-Sabi

April 2013 | back-issues, poetry

Technically, you’re doing a poor job. You have no form.

The hatchet flails down into the uprooted stump.

The beagle howls. George Williams, Mr. Horton, Hilliary,

and the other neighbors spring up in their beds.

The dog’s mug and paws clatter the chain-link fence

like an ambitious kid assigned to the chimes in music class

sweeping the tiny stick over the metal bars

in gloriously abrupt, halted, and sped up glissandos

that out perform the glockenspiels and make the triangle feel

even more alone and pointless.

Despite the fact that everyone you saw yesterday seemed

so much happier than you, don’t you feel a bit better right now?

Your work may achieve what the Roshis speak of: 

Wabi-sabi in the stump. Perfection in imperfection—

gashes si-goggly like fallen trees in a forest

or the green of moss glowing on anything when it’s grey out,

or the hatchet tilted in the corner of your living room

and your decision to take a night off of listening to Stereolab

on opium, and going out back to shave,

whittle, chop, and cut at a piece of hickory.

The neighbors’ kitchen lights flick on,

visored faces against the windows.

by Noah Burton

Jacob Valadez

April 2013 | back-issues, poetry

small birds

i am sitting at the top of a building in the rain

there is always the now if the then was kept forgotten

the cold salt 

a small bird wakes in the nest

eyes open

i like his skin too cool

the small bird cries out on the edge of the nest as the wind whips around

my heart is pattering and he sees it

i am he and he is i

it patters in time with the rain

harder and harder like the ground the bird hits

i lose them to rain down on him and he feels their sound

the pattering heart holds me still and devours me

the shadow deafens him to the birds song

the skin too cool reaches me and I am fed

i am the bird

i am the man

now i can lie like the birds and their young 

by Jacob Valadez

Mr. Valadez is an aspiring writer who is currently attending the University of California San Diego as an undergraduate.

Drunk Dream

April 2013 | back-issues, poetry

You and me and brightness

You and me and pink and

Purple widening circles.

The pale skin on your neck,

That red cowlick like Tin Tin’s,

Your eyes, wide and blue.

Someone sings in a high,

Clear voice. We come close

To kissing, but don’t.

by Catherine Simpson

Catherine Simpson is a cellist who lives in Santa Barbara. She has been previously published in the Big River Poetry Review, Right Hand Pointing, Spectrum, Step Away Magazine, and Into the Teeth of the Wind.