April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
The New Prayer
An American,
a woman dressed
for self expression,
rushes the line
and shouts
“Your holiness, your holiness,
I’ve made up a new prayer.”
Whether this is execrable
or this is good and important
depends entirely
on whether or not
the prayer works.
The Chicken-Egg Town Line
The downtown built on the railroad,
lies between the one built on the highway,
and the one on the river
The world was built upon a world
Indians atop dinosaurs atop boiling rock
atop the peripatetic habits of the excrement of a star
And I am one more thing the dirt has done,
among books and soda cans, squinting for a sliver of light
between the chicken and the egg
I try to tell the story
so that the beginning
is not obliterated by the middle
The Last Days of Comprehension
The custom of reality is too makeshift
to withstand very much, too entrenched to replace,
and too misbegotten to repair.
The sun is the color of the DON’T WALK sign.
The bridge loses its existence to its utility.
The sky is ultimately a metaphor.
Even the angels, especially the angels,
become obstacles.
This capital-letter Life
is like Chopin
played on a rape whistle.
And reality is like a line drawing of a man.
Remove one line, maybe two, and
there is no resemblance,
only a collection of scribbles.
by Colin Dodds
Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment – A Tragedy, was named a semi-finalist in 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poems have appeared in dozens of publications, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
5:07 pm at coconut joes bar
Perched on the stool with my feet
hooked into the rounded footstep
I
am
Preened
eyes scanning quest
who suddenly appear
and I lock onto them in the cool Revo
shade of the liquored watering hole
displaying bleached fangs
at striking distance as
skweeking noisy groups
of twos and fours engage
in skittish gossip
I am base and knuckled and
primal – no affectation of
enlightenment, evolution, religion
or Gloria Steinem
technology ancient in
gelled hunt of perfect
savagery with a
denim cloaked tool
seeking prey
before closing time.
After a confidential word with the concierge
As I step down from the chicken fluttered bus
I’m hit with a blast of popcorn bag heat
opened directly into my face and I glide through
the cheek and jowl streets with
tangled knots of aromas from street market stalls
I feel life flow back into me(!) as I
grow nearer and remove my aviatar shades
perching them on my head with my left hand while
my right hand confirms a lump of faded colonial pointed nose men
aiming towards the bar recommended by the fuzzy diced
1995 caprice classic taxi driver with a broken air conditioner and
I see fleshy tropical shirted gringos appearing uncommonly popular
at Las Diablo.
She holds eye contact for 5 glorious seconds
and slides through perfumed air towards me
and I rewind to a time of
cars and lakes and
cascading hair
and beery mirth and
soft touches and the freshly packaged
newness of youth that the counsel of
my years will not surrender
and I become intoxicated by the whole
damn thing and soon we are
stumbling into the sharp edge of the city
through dying light
past corrugated iron and angry graffiti.
We are sniped by well aimed stares of
lost possibilities from women whose
arms are thick from lifting children.
Their eyes have no flicker.
These things cause
our buzz to fade a little
and we become less tactile as
we reach a concrete squared house with a
sleepy hammock and mongrels and dusty children kicking a ball
and a grandmother slowly and silently lifts her face
towards my mumbled greeting
but her hands continue their soapy toil.
I find myself in a bare bulb room with a
picture of Jesus that I remember from childhood Catechism
on the wall and an old iron post bed with thin sheets and soon
I see this:
The symmetry of her face, close up, is melting.
Her lip curves slightly up on the left side as
does the right. Matching almond eyes
with a brow of gentle waves and laughter that
occasionally breaks into flashes of
sadness.
A child is conversing in the
next room in animated tones playing with
a (formerly) blonde one armed doll who is
competing with a tube tv
broadcasting a Brazilian soap opera.
A rooster crows, a reggaeton
car thumps by and the
street noises converge
into a disquieting hum.
We shift from grip to grip to grip as
a tired oscillating fan moves slowly
left and right and left, as if
in disapproval.
by Tony Walton
Tony Walton is from the Cayman Islands. He graduated from the University of New Orleans. His most recent writing has been featured in Whisperings Magazine (Mountain Tales Press). He currently lives in the Cayman Islands where he manages real estate, writes, and travels the Caribbean as an amateur photographer.
April 2013 | back-issues, poetry
Leaps
Free fall. A star
Flashing through the universe.
Arms spread to angel wings,
The ripcord at the last possible moment,
Then floating like an autumn leaf.
Or that umbilical cord,
Off a cliff headfirst the way a hawk
Dives for its prey. The bounce to signal
The end of adventure.
Surge of adrenalin. Veins rivering
In flood. Heart as full as love
Could measure. Every muscle timed
To perfection in the pit
Of the belly where cells muster.
Man on a bridge
Nervously pacing before swinging
A leg over the rail. Balancing precariously
As if considering. What thoughts
Race as he plummets knowing
No halo of salvation can open
Above him like a bright flower,
No stretch of imagination
To seize his ankles and hold him.
More Bad News
Here comes the Andromeda Galaxy
Destined to smash the Milky Way
In four billion years. One more thing
To worry about along with taxes,
Unemployment, college tuition, decline
Of the liberal arts, bankruptcy of Medicare,
Pension plans, Social Security, moral
Integrity, faith and love.
We lie awake in our white beds
Of starfall counting the disasters
About to befall generations
Still quivering in our cells. However,NASA
Predicts a merger rather than pure devastation:
Milkomeda, an enormous cow
Of a daughter chained to rock
But rescued by Perseus. So there’s always hope
That earth may be spared, though by then our sun
Is a cauldron filled with our ashes. Another thing
To trouble about as the skies pale
Behind the blinds.
by Joan Colby
Joan Colby is an award-wining writer who has been widely published in journals including Poetry, Atlanta Review, GSU Review, Portland Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, Mid-American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Kansas Quarterly, The Hollins Critic, Minnesota Review, Western Humanities Review, College English, Another Chicago Magazine and others.
