April 2017 | poetry
Contemplate the smooth
surfaced speech,
frisk the word,
stride, run,
fall to overhear
the dried rustle,
a keyboard presses itself.
The bell rings,
the cat wafer,
arid pudding,
drive deep
on the artery,
jelly rushes
out from the bush,
clings, map to life.
The tones,
metronome tink,
how do I call for you?
a word fitted freshly,
airy curtain pounding,
fathered
ensnared
collecting crossroads.
Names are myths
to be released,
wrench them out,
feet hang on
the wooden floor, the
painted oaks spoiled,
elusive reed
rubbing the tip,
may the licorice cup
cease to be called,
thumb strikes
a calling in, a lift
a touch,
a noise
litmus
by extraction.
Afternoon proceeds
itsy bitsy gray reflections,
antsy dots settle
preserve or react
the froth,
name of some
road
on tired eyes.
the vital spirit.
Benedict Downing
Benedict Downing has written fiction, poetry since his adolescence. He joined local community reading circles, workshops, college literary groups, and ventured into his own. Has published in literary journals like Poetry Life and Times, Danse Macabre, Belleville Park Pages, Crack the Spine, New Plains Review, and The Sentinel Quarterly. He is currently working in his second novel, and other projects. There are two published books written by Mr. Downing. A poetry book “Sidereal Reflux” (2011) and a novel “Epicrisis” (2014).
April 2017 | poetry
Mother Never Cries
Come over she says I’ll make you a tuna fish sandwich
Lunch with Mother who lives in black and white
Black – Uncle Ado –Cheap bastard – money to him was everything
Black – her friend Nina banished –She sent her sister away to a nursing home
Those in black were dead but no tears only anger
About her whites she has an ease
Your father I kiss him once in the morning and once at night
Now, as I bite into her sandwich she comes closer…leans in
You know I never cry, not even when my father died
I’m at a loss, what’s this Mom…doubt?
Self-righteous…rigid…you?
Did she think, My boy, see what he says
Tell him what I don’t understand
I with never a question about anything…ever?
And I think what a strange way
It would be to tell me
I love you
What a strange way
The Gloves
The wintry day says gloves
Walk in the cold rain and it says gloves
Stop for lunch at the Tex Mex and it says
Gloves on the table to pencil my menu selection
The newspaper to read and it says to my spot by the window
The chicken, beans and rice plate and it says life is good
Time to go and where are my gloves?
On the table, in my briefcase, in my jacket and nothing
I look up and at the door a man in a sweatshirt holds gloves
Out the door he goes and doesn’t put them on
I see him walk down the block
They could be my gloves
I think I’m an old fool these days
I can’t chase him down the block
Maybe the gloves in a place I missed
Might even have left them home
No, he walks out with the gloves that say
Look here, left alone on the table
Left alone and it’s not a steal
He couldn’t just call out – anyone here lose these
Yet I want some sort of answer
Someone at fault…
Someone at kindness
The man not quite a thief
Me not quite a victim
Greg Moglia
Greg Moglia is a veteran of 27 years as Adjunct Professor of Philosophy of Education at N.Y.U and 37 years as a high school teacher of Physics and Psychology. His poems have been accepted in over 300 journals in the U.S., Canada, England, India, Australia, Sweden, Belgium and Austria as well as five anthologies. He is 8 times a winner of an ALLEN GINSBERG Poetry Award sponsored by the poetry center at Passaic County Community College. He lives in Huntington, N.Y.
January 2017 | poetry
it spills, like ink drooling into graveled
roads, hair hanging from the broken neck—
i run—past the smoked houses that smell of
firecrackers on new year’s—but too
heavy—it drags across my skin;
they said the wokou are coming! ri ben ren lai le!
but the peonies dressed with summer’s qipao
told us stay, stay, stay.
did we stay to die here?
his stomach bulged as they forced water
down his throat, eyes screaming mercy—
Pop!
uncle, your swollen body haunts me now.
and mother, lullabies and village songs have grown
into the pig’s squeal just before the butcher’s mark—
what did you sing to me before? all i recall is,
“don’t touch me there!”
they said “world war”
but what did we do?
i have seen things. pregnant women with torn open bellies,
heads of our ragtag soldiers in target practice.
the red scarf of a schoolgirl.
her body splayed open, dumped in our once-blue pond.
why did we stay?
i did not want this adventure.
my voice has stilled; i am no longer brave like mulan, my hero.
Pop!
wait, i wasn’t ready.
Allison Chen
Allison Chen is a writer from Queen Creek, Arizona. She has been published or upcoming publication in the Paha Review, Canvas Literary Journal, Shine: Best Arizona Teen Writing of 2016, Brushtalks Magazine, and the Writer’s Slate. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards, Mount Mercy University, and Skipping Stones Youth Honor Awards.
January 2017 | poetry
December collapses
with a heaved sigh.
Only the bachelor jay
bathed in his cerulean vest
resists the fait accompli
of ephemeral gray.
The lynx pads soundlessly
into this laundered, stony light,
tufted ears twitching
to the avian colic
attending her
persecution
of wending,
eremitic hare.
Mounting spoor—
shallow spoons
from snowshoed feet;
roods upon whispered white.
Deep inside this refuge,
her feline eye—burnt
ochre to its edges—
promises peril
in a clasping, crushing end.
Though a button breeze,
Time’s muted arbiter,
foretells some misgiving:
cryptic rendezvous
in a lethal distance—
the southernmost verge
of an endangered range.
Gina Bernard
Gina Marie Bernard holds B.A., B.S., and M.A. degrees from Bemidji State University. She writes and teaches high school English in Bemidji, Minnesota. Her daughters, Maddie and Parker, are the two halves of her heart. Her work has recently appeared in Appalachia, Balloons Lit. Journal, The Bat Shat, Border Crossing, Cimarron Review, Fox Cry Review, Glitterwolf Magazine, Tule Review, and Uprooted: An Anthology on Gender and Illness.
January 2017 | poetry
Obliquity
Give me poems—
poems which speak to the heart
and not the head;
whose words roll from the tongue
like water over polished stone;
which say straight out
what they have to say;
whose truth does not lie buried
beneath endless layers
of meaningless metaphor;
poems unlike those
fawned over by the literary elite,
but leave me asking:
What fuckery is this?
Rescued
Standing in the bathroom,
attempting to text
and pee at the same time,
I dropped my cell phone in the toilet.
In a flash, I saw the phone’s
micro-circuits signing off, one by one,
as I reached down and took hold of
the little urine-soaked rectangle.
And now,
after three days of silence,
no texts, no emails
no help from the ubiquitous Siri,
the phone still buried
in a bowl of Uncle Ben’s long-grain rice,
I wonder who, in truth, has been rescued—
the cell phone or me?
Bad Kitty
He was a bad kitty,
and did not care.
Dining according to the dictates
of his own finicky palate,
he turned up his nose
at all the rest.
Without warning, he would
bite the very hand which fed him,
if that hand strayed where
he deemed it should not be.
He shat and pissed and wiped his butt
wherever he chose—oriental rug,
litter box or easy chair,
they were all the same to him.
Clueless that he owed us anything,
he slept through the day curled in front
of the big glass door, twitching in the sunlight
as he dreamed his ephemeral, feline dreams.
For he was a bad kitty,
and did not care.
Howard Brown
Howard Brown is a poet and writer who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Lookout Mountain. His poetry has appeared in Old Hickory Review and Poetry Super Highway. In 2012, he published a book of poetry entitled “The Gossamer Nature of Random Things.” His poem “Pariah” placed first in the poetry division of the 2015 William Faulkner Literary Competition put on by Mississippi’s Tallahatchie Riverfest. He has published short fiction in Louisiana Literature, Extract(s), Gloom Cupboard, F**k Fiction, Crack the Spine, Pulpwood Fiction and Mad Hatter Review (forthcoming).
January 2017 | poetry
I loved the humidity then.
It could have smothered me.
I didn’t mind,
in the tree house,
lying on my back like a forgotten swimsuit,
drinking in the hum of flies.
I rolled over the uneven planks until the call for dinner.
That verdict now in.
Heat waves never drove
down my street
when I was seven,
but one crawled over our back fence
when I was thirteen.
I timed the drops
of sweat, beads like men
solitary and suicidal leaping from my face
until my father drove up.
Even the heat
didn’t dare go near him.
Candice Kelsey
Candice is a passionate educator who has been challenging students to think and live well for 18 years. Her poems have been published in print and online publications, including The Forum (San Francisco City College), 13th Floor Magazine, Tethered by Letters’ f(r)iction, 50 Haiku, Assaricus; she has read at various LitQuake and open mic events from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Candice is also the author of a 2007 trade paperback book (de Capo) which led to her spot on NPR with Diane Rehm. Candice earned her M.A. in literature from LMU. She is an Ohio native who carves out life in Los Angeles with the help of her three children and many pets.
