January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
New Somalia
Wherever she walks
that is Mogadishu.
Her ruby-colored veil cascades to her knees.
Her posture is not left to nature’s vices
like these impressionable
sidewalk-tamed and -framed trees.
The crosswalk blushes beneath her feet
for she weaves a red carpet out of its common,
striped concrete and, as she glides past,
cars stand at attention on the street,
giving her all but a military salute.
As she forges ahead, resolute as a general,
the mind conjures the flourish of a trumpet
and a desert wind is felt, carried inexplicably
upon an ocean breeze. Meanwhile,
seagulls on curved lampposts sit still
and the second-story dentist looks on,
mesmerized, at his window sill.
The traffic light gives green cards
but not all take off at once.
Somalia, for one, is still learning the roads
but she is with strength and drive replete.
I do not worry about her, that Somalia,
for, though she comes as a surprise to this town,
this town doesn’t surprise her in the least.
the (snow) globe
an arab who looked up to the west
until she looked it up
got the rundown
got run down
now looking up at stars
a female under males
trying to understand them
trying to get around them
without getting around
an american idolizing
the rising sun
but damning its horizon
a zealot searching for absolutes
in a chain reaction
a civilian hoping her soldier
will not be killed
by friendly fire
his memory steeped, dyed
in cold blood
people building up walls
walls tearing people down
human aliens invading
old stereotypes gracefully aging
actors without stages staging protests
picket lines shouting for an audience
lines of itinerant workers
for hire
and hopes for higher wages
falling to the ground
foreigners working as domestics
brown eyes becoming statistics
children whose existence
is resistance
unsympathetic weather
unnatural disasters
parents beating each other to pieces
trying to stay together
a family dilating and constricting
as the light comes out a rainbow
a human trying to be humane
a predator climbing down
the food chain
a storeowner resisting a window sale
a dog chasing after its own tail
an independent girl
still a dependent
a prisoner escaping
to confinement
a misguided man who considers
all but himself lost
another religiously secular
an atheist who wants to believe again
but has forgotten how
a virgin who always chastens herself
but wants to do it now
a millionaire who flies coach
a poor man with a porche
a liberal with a crocodile purse
a mercenary unattractive nurse
innumerable iterations of 0 and 1
wars both peoples lost
ones both countries won
ignoble nobel laureates
a disunited united nations
an inoperative surgeon
leading countless operations
sky rises raising eyebrows
not standards of living
and standards waving
over double-parked cars
over double-doubles
over double standards
i stand sometimes looking
at this small curious world
in a snow globe
sometimes
in the snow globe
looking out
curiously
at the world
Epitaph
I didn’t know what to do, at first,
with their last remains
so I lined them shoulder to shoulder
and ran over the bodies.
If burning a book is sacrilege, then what of human flesh?
If burying is cruel in life, how much more in death?
This way they’ll not repel the eye should they be unearthed.
This way not gods but simple men will trigger their rebirth,
and if a chance puff of dust tempts from you a sneeze,
it’ll be a comfort to know that those weren’t arms and knees.
So bury the urn and burn the blasted coffin.
I want to be the death of a few hundred trees;
I want to be a character in your memories.
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
City of Trope L’oeils
It goes without saying
that a newly married American
accompanying her husband
to Naples on business
wants to avoid
the stares
of handsome Italian men
and thereby
the appearance of impropriety
while sipping espresso
at a café outside the hotel.
Instead, she looks at a magazine,
perhaps Vogue.
Of course, out of a sense of decorum,
she refrains from wearing 3D spectacles
while gazing at layouts of seminudes
lest a half-starved model
escapes the pages
and takes off down the street
in search of a slice of pizza (or lemon
gelato.)
Later that afternoon
fresh from a little nap,
the lady goes in search
of the city’s artistic treasures.
she pulls a purple scarf
from her purse
and covers her sleeveless top
before entering San Severo Chapel
where she intends to view such sculptures
as Queirolo’s Release from
Deception.
She passes by Jesus Under a
Shroud
almost missing the illusion
of a sheer, frail gossamer
draped about the body
of the Christ.
There can be no mistaking though
the other veiled creation,
a transparent-marble masterpiece
whose modest figure
Corradini deceptively displays
beneath a thin, fine gauze
causing the lady,
out of decorum,
to blush.
Just then the sound of someone singing
lures the visitor from the church
in time to find
no one at all
standing in the courtyard.
From whence came the Siren song
now suddenly silent?
She looks for a clue
but finding none
cannot be sure
she heard anyone at all.
“Ancient Casserole”
My mother’s own mother
and many another
going back to Toulouse
have slaughtered to the goose
the fowl and the pig
to make a stew twenty quarts big.
I stand by the oven trying to peak
at what’s taken all day but seemed like a
week.
Then I open the door and what should
appear
but a garlic herb crust quite golden and
dear.
Though it may seem a bit dumb,
I poke under the crumb,
but instead of finding a fatty feast
I discover a dish fit for neither woman nor
beast.
The white tarbais beans are not on my
side
but poke all about quite shriveled and
dried.
The bouquet garni has crumbled.
My hopes have now tumbled.
The duck is amock.
I’ve run out of luck.
Oh my. Oh my.
Hello and goodbye.
Ave atque vale,
cassoulet.
Lara Dolphin is a freelance writer. Her work
has appeared in such publications as “Word Catalyst Magazine,”
”River Poets Journal,” “The Foliate Oak Literary Journal” and
”Calliope.”
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Far worse than being unemployed,
in some respects;
Employees with nothing to do.
The Dubai street sweeper polishes his sidewalk,
that is already polished.
His mate pretends to pick up garbage with a pole grabber,
the streets are absolutely empty.
Ana, my hotel tourism saleswoman
sits at her little table by the exit,
tries small talk with the Pakistani bell boy
to no avail.
She stares out the glass door at the rain.
Muhammed at Fish World has fish sandwiches to sell
but no one is biting.
With his blue collared shirt, yellow vest, and sailor’s hat
he scratches his arm,
reads the menu for the thousandth time,
stares out at the rich mall rats who are free.
Wishes he could be beautiful,
like the azure-suited Chinese in Chinese Palace
or at least popular,
like the baseball-capped Filipinas in Burger King.
At last, the fish-eaters have arrived,
he smiles.
Bio note: Brian Briscombe burns wood in Falls Church, Virginia, USA. He’s never been published before unless you count his 60 Facebook Notes or the 600 US Government publications of his economic analysis. Recently Brian edited four painful papers that analyzed the costs and medical benefits of conducting male circumcisions in selected African countries. Although those papers might never be read, at least they paid better than Burning Wood. Brian likes it when strangers email him, so long as they are not Nigerian scam artists.
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
The chocolate-covered calendar read August
yet the citrus pork bellies lounged
casually on Christmas china waiting
for their escorts to the table, pigeon peas
freshly picked and still boiling
in a pot on the iron stove
the iron as black as night
the coals singing below
while nearby they lay
the potatoes quiet and still
meticulously scrubbed
carefully dried and seasoned
now asleep in a glass bowl
the red Idaho’s peeled
and poached in white wine
as the blind man sniffed the air
surrendering to the smells, succulent smells
pungent like cloves or tar;
the aromas escaped from the kitchen
entered the dining room, then hovered
like an eagle over the table
right above the midget squirming in his chair
his eyes fixed on the Christmas tree, an old wood pole
with branches made of toilet bowl scrubbers
their green bushy heads as prickly as pine needles
their arms draped in Christmas lights
trembling, shimmering, blinking rhythmically
to the music seeping into the midget’s head
the sound escaping from him, an iPod perhaps
as he sat on a high chair, his legs swinging
his mouth chewing on chocolate
his hands creating hills in front of him
hills of chocolate raisins
hills of M & M’s
hills he will hide in
when the pigeon peas appear.
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
i. April, 2005
The week before, his hands in the seat of my jeans.
The lake before us is low. The exposed shore reaches
under the beached docks, spread open to coming rain.
He said he’d wait for me here.
Hours after I leave him, he calls.
His voice nods slow through affections.
I never shot the shit. Never saw it,
either. I refused to see he still did.
After five days, the phone rings.
His mother found him, a needle in his arm, seven a.m.
He ran into the woods outside his house, screaming
that he wanted to die. He wants to die.
A Friday night, dark at 4 p.m. I close my window.
Spring ends with him in prison. The air thickens
as the lake is slowly filled. The first waves
splash against the docks, finally afloat.
ii. May, 2007
We sit on the porch of her farmhouse
at her stepdaughter’s college graduation party.
We watch the two dogs roll under stars
on the field of her front yard.
She pours two shots of silver
tequila like a blessing. Salut.
She toasts the lumps in her breasts
as we soothe agave fire with champagne.
I’ve come to this farmhouse since before
my breasts. She sobs as I light
a cigarette, insisting on silence
until a date for surgery is set.
Through the kitchen’s window,
her stepdaughter’s laughter. We hear
the cork shoot from the last bottle
of champagne, a glass shatter on the floor.
iii. August 2005 – November 2007
Six months after she died in the Iraqi desert,
he and I meet. We start against hallway walls.
We build between train stations,
all-night trips up and down the coast.
He leaves Lajeune, moves north. One night,
wrapped in the same blanket, he shows me pictures.
We come to her, naked, the vital parts censored
by an inner tube. Her wet hair. Her laughing face.
I end it shortly after. I watch him
do coke for the first time, watch walls.
I watch the walls, too, to find what he sees.
More blow, booze. Weed to balance.
We still go to bed together. He usually
falls asleep just as dawn seeps through
the window by the ceiling. His length warm
at my side, her memory curled at our feet.
iv. May, 2008
I received the summons, but the addressee’s name was incorrect.
I sent it back. I haven’t checked the mailbox since.
In the morning, they call because I have to be retested,
the initial test positive. I find a ride from a friend, leave
my brother a message. Outside my house, I tug
on my hair, scalp from skull, to know if I feel it.
I get in the car, can’t answer questions requiring
explanation. I twice light the filter of the cigarettes
I quit. Fiberglass sparks, singes in a crackling burn.
I get the third to light, swallow smoke.
In a tiny room, they ask me about drugs about fucking
about where a white suburban girl could pick up HIV.
They say I’m not in the risk group. With my blood,
they close the door. I stare at a Parenting magazine.
When they come back, they don’t shut the door. Negative.
I check they tested the right sample. The doctor nods, slowly.
In the parking lot, my brother waits, weeps into my hair.
A stoplight turns on Main Street, horns blare. No one moves.
Stefanie Botelho is a recent graduate of Western Connecticut’s MFA in Professional and Creative Writing program. She has been published with The New Verse News and has writing in the upcoming Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetry.”
January 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Paris
Our paths cross as they have before
greetings exchanged upon a hint of recognition
though unable to place when or where
I was thinking French class, or maybe
we were lovers in another lifetime.
Perhaps Paris…
expatriates sharing café au lait
and stories of home.
Strolling down the Champs- Elysees
I remove my chapeau and
bowing deeply, I ask you to dance.
Your cheeks blush, desperately
trying to match the perfectly pink
parasol you twirl above your head
in the sun- splashed boulevard.
Mass
Random thoughts,
like slow- moving, hungry beasts
forage through the meadow of my mind
the tireless shepherd of my consciousness
drives them on lest they consider
this range of gray matter a home
still they graze and consume
every grain- do they not know
they too will perish
when all is gone
can they not see
what fate lies ahead
and the shepherd; tender of the flock
simply walks behind these creatures,
not minding the foreboding clouds
forming a dark malleable mass
not yet raining
but always threatening
