July 2016 | poetry
Between any here or there
is a road or pathway,
a line, a distance,
a fragment of broken space.
Some surfaces have an existence
in themselves and lead out
to celestial spheres, the parallels
and perpendiculars of time, unknowns.
Is there any center that can hold,
a perfect x/y axis, a constant north,
a dimension that emanates and radiates?
Is there an essential place?
Some roads are easy to travel:
prairie grass waves in soft breezes,
the air shines, and soft shadows
dance in the day’s motion.
Trees grow and are cut down,
gravity defied and then realized.
Between beginnings and the end,
our place is a question, a muted wish.
Acceleration against inertial space
leads to this or that party, a smile
and wave. Our own darker moments,
searching for less grievous avenues.
Is there any place, celestial or grounded,
that avoids the closed doors,
cold caves, the hard wood nailed together
spanning all directions?
by Carla Ann McGill
Carla Ann McGill grew up in Southern California and lives there in Rancho Cucamonga with her husband. She has an MA and a PhD from the University of California, Riverside, and a BA from California State University, San Bernardino. She has work published in A Clean Well-Lighted Place, Shark Reef, Crack the Spine, Westview, Common Ground Review, Caveat Lector, and Inland Empire Magazine, and work forthcoming in Vending Machine Press. As a member of the Poetry Society of the Huntington Library from 1991–2012, her poems have appeared in three of the group’s chapbooks: Garden Lyrics, Huntington Lyrics, and California Lyrics. She writes poetry, fiction, and is working on a novel and stage play.
July 2016 | poetry
A Sudden Wind
makes leaves tremble,
bends branches,
lifts my hair, tangles.
Enters my nostrils,
steals my breath.
I turn
against its surge,
look down;
dust whirls upward,
blinds me,
grips my throat.
I taste it.
I am being whittled away
to join its force,
relinquish
resistance.
Guardian of the Night
An asteroid plowed
into Earth, belly-fire
and debris mingled,
coalesced into a sphere,
finding its orbit nearby.
The moon shines silver
or breathes sunlit gold,
peeks through darkness
into windows. Its glow
fills the hollows in my heart,
lights wings of imagination.
Guardian of my night,
continue your journey
an inch plus a year
toward the sun.
by Pamela Hammond
Pamela Hammond was born in Chicago, grew up in Southern California, and now lives in Santa Monica. For more than a decade, she worked as a Los Angeles-based critic for Art News based in New York. Her love of nature has led her to hike, backpack and travel, often to Northern California, and to Alaska, the Southwest, Hawaii, and New Zealand’s South Island, which became her home for almost a year. She completed two chapbooks, Encounters (2011) and Clearing (2012), produced by Red Berry Editions, Fairfax, California. In 2013, her work appeared in Forge, Assisi, Foliate Oak, Broad River Review, and Tulane Review. In 2014, her work appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Crack the Spine, Drunk Monkeys, Whistling Shade, Chaparral, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Westward Quarterly. In 2015, her work is forthcoming in Griffin and The Penmen Review. Her poem “Winter Walk” appeared in Crack the Spine’s Spring 2014 print anthology.
July 2016 | poetry
With only a pursed lip
and tone of crazed despair,
my body constricts itself,
the way a snake takes hold of it’s prey
right before the kill.
And you know the way
your throat closes and reopens
with the tangled sentiment of choked back tears?
No, wait.
That’s me, too.
And then the panic sets in-
the black of eyelids falling privy
to sudden heat, as it inches
as far as my fingertips-
where jagged nails are now
smooth and growing,
like the red dahlia stunted in shadows,
now blooms full with the sun.
I want to feel the freedom
of a criminal.
Send me away…
Anywhere, but here, I cry.
Anywhere,
but
here.
by Hannah Bushman
Self-proclaimed humanitarian, Hannah Bushman, is a lover of literature, music, and peppermint tea. She believes that the right song on a television show can make all the difference in the world. Hannah is a graduate of John Carroll University with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. In addition to poetry, Hannah revels in the creativity of photography and the logistics of psychology.
July 2016 | poetry
The days
nest—
precariously—
like empty
bowls.
*
A gold cigarette
butt, twisted
candy wrapper, discarded
plastic spoon, and dark,
flattened disk of gum
surround a blade
of grass growing
from a broken sidewalk,
the sprig seeming
a humble
probe of life
after
devastation, kindred spirit
to the tender
fleck of green
floating
on the quiet
pond in the spoon.
by Mark Belair
Mark Belair’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Alabama Literary Review, Atlanta Review, The Cincinnati Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry East and The South Carolina Review. His most recent collection is Breathing Room (Aldrich Press, 2015). Previous collections include Night Watch (Finishing Line Press, 2013); While We’re Waiting (Aldrich Press, 2013); and Walk With Me (Parallel Press of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, 2012). He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize three times. For more information, please visit www.markbelair.com
July 2016 | poetry
Harried by the orange digits
on the dashboard,
I leaned in around
the steering wheel,
up too close
to cars in front, ripped
past gnarled clearcut
patches. My
ferry reservation
crumpled in my hand
five miles before
I waived it at
the ticket clerk–
‘I’ve got to get to a funeral!’
The ferry rolled forward
in the sun, chased
looping seagulls
across the straight.
By the window,
I stared into the water
until bald stumps
surfaced
in the green-grey foam.
Then the PA brought my head up–
‘Passengers, today is the Sea Carnival–
look starboard,
the clown craft race is underway!’
And there, a yellow submarine,
an orca whale, an ambulance
nudged through the waves,
while on the shore
the whole town
filled the piers to watch.
The mourners fought
for footing in
deep sand. Someone
offered
an inoffensive little prayer
but was cut short
by a shrieking chaos out
on the Straight.
Gulls fell frantic,
ravenous
on the herring bloom.
And as we trudged off,
some birds heaved
their heavy stomachs and
floated drunkenly away,
while the cloud of ashes
billowed wider
just under
the waves.
by Jonathan Cooper
Jonathan’s poems and essays have appeared in various publications including The New Plains Review, Cirque Journal, The Statesman Journal, Houseboat Literary Magazine, and Poetry Pacific. He lives with his family in Vancouver, Canada.
July 2016 | poetry
Young girls make me smile
And cry at the same time
They are a bundle of dynamite
And a hurricane rolled into
One
But she just sits with a
Book as we’re passing
By a river
She reads while I look at that
Redhead of hair she owns
I think about her perfect tits
Hiding under her t-shirt
I want to take her hand
And whisk her off somehere
Make the time roll back
I watch her right resting
Still as a prayer
by Erren Kelly
Erren Kelly is a Pushcart nominated poet from Los Angeles. Erren has been writing for 25 years and have over 150 publications in print and online in such publications as Hiram Poetry Review, Mudfish, Poetry Magazine(online), Ceremony, Cactus Heart, Similar Peaks, Gloom Cupboard, Poetry Salzburg and other publications.
