April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
You were there from birth,
passed down from father to son,
waltzing through my veins. My muse.
We embraced, perfectly on pitch,
a song, and then I found
another
and I left you.
I see you
tattooed on my wrists. Thick
black lines, a G
and an F.
My former muse, permanent
over my veins,
under my skin,
a perpetual reminder.
I stare at you, remembering.
Wanting still
to create with you. After all,
you are in still in my blood,
but you’ve left my heart.
Empty capillaries flail
like strings waiting to be plucked,
longing to resonate,
but I’ve forgotten the tune.
by Justin W. Price
Justin W. Price is the managing editor at efiction Horror and for The Bridge online newspaper. His first book of poetry, Digging to China, is available for Amazon Kindle. He has been published in the Hellroaring Review, The Bellwether Review, The Rusty Nail, the Crisis Chronicles, eFiction Humor and eFiction Magazine. He maintains a blog (http://pdxjpricefirstblog.blogspot.com) and is an active writer on Hub Pages (http://pdxkaraokeguy.hubpages.com)
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
It’s cigarettes and coffee
between worries and words.
I could be talking to you
instead of myself,
but you’re allergic to smoke
and I can’t step outside
every 10 minutes.
It’s winter in New York City.
I won’t make any sacrifices.
I’ve come far enough in life
to know when to give in
and I won’t give in to you.
I don’t have to.
The thing inside of me
that can radiate for miles
will bestow its warmth
only on the hands of those
who know how to touch it.
And it shifts.
It twists and turns and
sits angrily deep within me.
It rages against the lampshade
I’ve been living under
since I came back home.
It curses the shade’s weight
and girth, and then
it shakes.
And the only thing I can do to still it
is find a worthy pair of hands,
or bathe in the sun.
But it’s fucking winter in New York City.
So it’s cigarettes and coffee, then,
and conversations with myself.
by Tonianne Druckman
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
0
Geometry of motion: the pinpricks of stars behind
moving clouds reforming into instants of fungus.
World’s tallest building in the revolving foreground.
1.
Player piano script unrolled on the green park bench
near boulevard Magenta. Strawberries for sale in the market,
three coins a pound. The butcher is disassembling a leg of lamb:
his left hand is a hook. Still lifes of meat in the window.
2.
“. . . in the grotto of Our Lady of the Cripples, a girl
placed a plastic rosary around a statue’s wrist
that melted in the hot light of the votives. Her prayers–
balls of burnt wax at the figures’ unclothed feet.”
3.
Maps to everywhere lead to nowhere where there’s
the always of never, never again. Cave housed
with bats unfolding like tricky scissors, or airs of night time.
4.
Stamps on a letter canceled by mascara.
5.
Black and white of a photograph of the canal
and the train station behind. The engine house switching
round like the handless arms on a watch.
6.
On the inside cover of a matchbook there’s
an advertisement for a new set of teeth;
dentures sent through the mail, echo of Van Gogh.
7.
Woman at a loom weaving a canvass of henbane. The spool
turns and flax is taken up onto wooden beams. The thread
passes between her lips– dragon flies land ringleting the pond.
7.1/2
Stitchwork of concentric circles left by the skipping stone . . .
by Philip Kobylarz
Philip’s recent work appears or will appear in Connecticut Review, Basalt, Santa Fe Literary Review, New American Writing, Poetry Salzburg Review and has appeared in Best American Poetry. His book, Rues, was recently published by Blue Light Press of San Francisco.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Old trees in the winter are like wizards
clean shaven or white beards hanging,
you can see the 60s and 70s in them,
not far off at all, right there even,
if you look closely. You could even see
other decades that you wish you lived in,
like the, 40s? I don’t know, I don’t look for
the 40s when I look, but
these trees are the ones, with that grainy gray
winter film on them: where the sticks come from
that crack under our feet when we walk together
through the woods towards the giant wind turbines
we’ve always wanted to stand at the base of,
just to see. Walking towards a brand new thing
like you and I, through the Scots pines, Silver maples,
Old things, trees
at home in yards: the ones creaky old rocking chairs
are made from, newly made even, I could make one
right now, lubed up and stained fresh,
but if I used that old thing out there, like a giant’s tibia
preserved from some other decade,
it would creak, crack, cold and crisp with gray
outside like this portion of the world’s schedule
the sun just couldn’t buy its way into:
“Sorry Mr. Sun, sir. The sky is booked. It’s not that
the rain will be using it, it’s just that you can’t.”
That kind of gray, more refreshing to wake up to
than orange juice, gray dancing in a line around
November through February and the trees—
branches dead enough to let me climb them
to their tip top, but snap anytime I try sitting
up there awhile and watch me fall, all the way
back onto the grass, back on the grass,
breathing in the smoke smell from a bon-fire
two houses down, burning old creaky things,
old creaky things burning.
by Andy McIntyre
Andy’s poetry and fiction have been published in Hard Freight, a Penn State literary journal, and two of my original plays were also there produced during my time there as a student.
January 2013 | back-issues, poetry
It began as easily
as the opening of a flower.
A parfait of feelings,
sticky confections
enjoyed together;
an ache in the marrow
when they were apart.
They went to dinner and films.
They danced at clubs and balls
dressed up in the costumes
of fairy tales.
Then came the camping trips,
and visits to theme parks.
And they got an apartment,
dividing rent, utilities,
groceries and chores.
Soon, they met the parents
with mock chastity,
sleeping in separate bedrooms.
It was a predictable dance.
Tacit understandings.
Compromises.
Accommodations.
Expectations.
A diamond ring
to close the deal.
They sat together on the couch
in their bathrobes by the flatscreen TV.
Between them was a bowl of buttered popcorn
to share on movie night.
As he listens to Andy Dufresne and Red
talk about escaping from
Shawshank State Prison,
all he can think about
is how to say goodbye.
by 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 book of poetry entitled Points of Interest appeared in 2012 and is available on Amazon. He has published nearly forty poems and short stories in literary journals and his work has been anthologized multiple times. In a prior life he taught speech-language pathology at Auburn University and authored six major professional textbooks.
January 2013 | back-issues, poetry
I hear a red, circular noise,
but I don’t know where it’s coming from.
I could look for it,
but I think I’ll just to go back to bed for a couple of weeks.
Even if the night is a magnetic field,
it’s still darkly repulsive.
When you examine the historical record,
you can learn about the lowest high temperature,
and the highest low temperature.
The speed limit however, is not posted.
It’s a little like listening to the sizzle of pink electricity;
carnal, yet pristine.
I often wish I knew how to play poker, but I was raised very religiously.
I wasn’t allowed to gamble anywhere near a television set.
It’s much easier to love an other at a distance,
although, over time, you may discover yourself
growing apart.
Love chooses its own gravity,
just like a remora chooses its own shark.
Symbiosis works best in tandem with loneliness.
On the surface of the diamond planet, ‘55 Cancri e’,
the temperature is 3900 degrees.
Wherever you may be, the flame burns bluest near the source of combustion.
On August evenings, Hollywood’s swimming pools glisten
like intentionally set wildfires.
They shimmer, wet rectangles of aquamarine, television light.
Of course, you can’t change the channel.
Fortunately, learning to write a complete poem is a lot easier than it looks,
if you give it half a chance.
Like a reincarnation story you’ve read twice,
it’s over more than once, before you’ve begun.
by Brad Rose
Brad Rose was born and raised in southern California, and lives in Boston. His poetry and fiction have appeared in , Boston Literary Magazine, San Pedro River Review, Off the Coast, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, Santa Fe Literary Review, Barely South Review, Imagination and Place, Monkeybicycle, Right Hand Pointing, Little (flash) Fiction, SleetMagagazine.com, and other publications.
