January 2019 | poetry
King Erasure
At your intervention which was nothing more
than a pageantry of post it notes
stained by a ballpoint’s opium ink
dangling on an inch of yellow adhesive
stuck to your armored chest,
you told us what you wanted to be-
a cold steel coffin of pink champagne
where a jewelry box gleaming with
dirty needles floated in the hands of ladies
in waiting who no longer spread their
legs like wings, sheltering veins of regal blood, as
your shimmering crown of aluminum foil
sparkled above a bath towel cape
hailing you King Erasure.
Commando Ballerina
The need to remember
not to remember
swallowing yesterday’s glassy swords
sharpened by trembling hands,
by fingertips calloused from
dancing on lighters
to the beat of blood beneath these nails
that kept me alive through the night,
is why ten little soldiers in
pink fishnet stockings
salute the light in my eyes,
twirling at dawn on the shores
of my face, like commando ballerinas disarmed.
by Daniel Edward Moore
Daniel lives in Washington on Whidbey Island. His poems have been in Spoon River Poetry Review, Rattle, Columbia Journal, Western Humanities Review, and others. His poems are forthcoming in West Trade Review, Duende Literary Journal, The Inflectionist Review, Magnolia Review, Isthmus Review, Glass Mountain Magazine, Columbia College Literary Review, January Review, Under a Warm Green Linden, Yemassee and Cumberland River Review. His books, “This New Breed: Gents, Bad Boys and Barbarians” an Anthology, and “Confessions of a Pentecostal Buddhist,” can be found on Amazon. Visit Daniel at DanielEdwardMoore.com.
January 2019 | poetry
on the bus, after we heard the news,
I saw a woman softly sobbing into her hands;
beside her was a Whole Earth shopping bag
containing what must be heirloom or designer apples
that were almost orange in color –
perhaps a miniature pumpkin,
if such a thing exists –
and what resembled a purple pomegranate.
another woman was picking at her nails
nervously
like a monkey searching for nits.
the crying woman patted the pockets
of her all-weather jacket;
maybe she was searching for a handkerchief
to wipe her face?
but then I noticed that her face
was darkening, like the tears
were soot, and by mingling with her skin,
they were turning her entire person
into black-and-white, like an old-fashioned movie;
soon, everyone on the bus
was fading into black,
or vanishing altogether
as they bleached out of my vision.
I looked down at my hands
and I, too, no longer
had any color except shadows
and pale, ghostly flesh –
it seemed like early Halloween,
or an Edgar Allen Poe tale come to life.
someone on the bus said,
I think we’re heading back into the 1950s,
before color TV, and someone else said, no,
the 1930s, before Technicolor hit Hollywood:
it’s like in The Wizard of Oz, in Kansas,
before Dorothy meets the Munchkins,
or follows the yellow brick road.
the woman stopped her sobbing, sniffled, then said,
yes, we’re going backwards, to when white men
didn’t have to share the country with anyone else.
by Alison Jennings
Alison Jennings is retired from teaching and accounting; throughout her life, she has composed over 400 poems, and recently published several of them, in print journals and online. She lives in Seattle, where she writes poetry whenever she has time.
January 2019 | poetry
The emotion that lies at the heart,
not shown in gestures and words,
cannot be measured or felt,
but for myself.
Disillusion, sadness and despair,
even rejoicing and pleasure,
have created tears, salty and hot ones,
that have leavened the soil where I live,
bringing forth flowers, fruits, children.
Have also nourished and ennobled my spirit,
paying the toll I owe to the lord of the fief.
I am sure they are leading me to Canaan,
the promised land where evil finds no shelter
and milk and honey flow abundantly.
Where the woman I desire is waiting for me,
at the door of my house, longing and needy,
wife and lover.
by Edilson Afonso Ferreira
A Brazilian poet, Mr. Ferreira, 75, writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Largely published in international journals in print and online, he began writing at age 67. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2016. His first Poetry Collection – Lonely Sailor – is coming soon, scheduled to be launched in London, November 29th 2018, with one hundred poems. He blogs at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.
January 2019 | poetry
A noisy, anxious fall,
the nation hangs
on a precipice
as the noise reaches
an ugly crescendo.
In three days, we
will know the script
our nation will follow
the next two years.
As we look forward
in weary trepidation,
we mostly want it
to be over and usher
in a wintery peace.
by Janet Jenkins-Stotts
Janet Jenkins-Stotts has taught at Highland Community College, Wichita State University, and Kansas University. She has self-published a novel The Orchid Garden, and a chapbook, “Winter’s Yield. She has performed slam poems on weight loss, and women’s issues at Open Mics and slam contests.
January 2019 | poetry
My vagina and Venice Beach
both of which
are no longer that Xanadu
subculture of old school grooves and funk –
there’s no more riffing with Morrison,
no sonic hey-days
spent skating figure eights.
My vagina and Venice Beach
are haunted by the laughs of men
who’ve gentrified Bohemian-sweet virginity
with basil-honeysuckle soap
and brute celebrity.
My vagina and Venice Beach
were plowed by lucrative
boutiques, Silicon Beach, and tiny
yellow ghosts pulling out.
My vagina and Venice Beach
went from roller dancing to race riots,
Dogtown to Blue Bottle Coffee –
the boom boxes were stolen,
and the gondoliers
bought homes in the Valley.
The First Baptist Church of Venice
sits vacant and boarded up
while residents hold Sunday morning vigils
protesting the billionaire
who’s determined to make it his home.
V is for the vigil
I hold between my thighs.
by Candice Kelsey
Candice Kelsey’s poems have appeared in such journals as Poet Lore, The Cortland Review, Sibling Rivalry Press, and Wilderness House — and her work has been incorporated into multiple 3-D art installations. She has been accepted into the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Virginia Quarterly Review’s Writer’s Conference. She published a successful 2007 trade paperback with Da Capo Press. An educator of 20 years’ standing, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.
January 2019 | poetry
If these islands have names,
I do not know them,
for I am not of the earth.
If these seas have a name,
I do not know it,
for I am not of water.
If today’s soft wind has a name,
I do not know it,
for I am not of the air.
If the stars tonight have names,
I do not know them
for I am not of fire.
I am Time.
I am your moment: Now!
I know your name, I do.
by Karla Linn Merrifield
Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 700+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 13 books to her credit, the newest of which is Psyche’s Scroll, a book-length poem, published by The Poetry Box Select in June 2018. Forthcoming in June 2019 is her full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North, from Cirque Press. Her Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye. She is a member of Just Poets (Rochester, NY), the Florida State Poetry Society, the New Mexico Poetry Society, and The Author’s Guild. Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet Redux, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com. Google her name to learn more; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel; https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.
