July 2016 | poetry
The round and flat disc
Became a glowing orb again
In earnest today.
The static landscape
Awoke into a fierce self-
Conducting opus.
A hunched man clutching
Bamboo unruffled his cloak
To show the graceful,
Smiling waterfall
Of Loshan his two grandkids
Love-leeching frail hips.
A wood-paneled floor
Opened its stoic lacquer
To permeation
To welcome my tear-
Soaked cheek and then to comfort.
That, your intention?
by Griff Foxley
Griff holds a bachelor of arts in English literature from Vassar College where he studied with Eamon Grennan, and an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He is a member of the Los Angeles Poets and Writers Collective, and is currently attending the Jack Grapes’ Method Writing Workshop. A New York City native, he has been a Los Angeles resident for the past ten years, and works as a food business entrepreneur, social justice activist, and writer. He enjoys listening to music, bike riding through the city, and spending time with his wife and two toddlers.
July 2016 | poetry
Cast up into heights of liberation
By bleeding air from the big blimp balloon
That had arisen out of stalwart eruptions of emotion
Taking then launching him
Happiness surrendering to hard stares and encroaching staggers of justification
As if laughter mattered in the face off with destiny newly invented
Piling treasure on carpets woven in history
Before you woke up to
The possibilities slumbering in subconscious travel
On to where you’re supposed to be
Believing in whatever could be
Despite it never having been seen
In his lifetime
Yet
There is always room
Somewhere
For change
by Josef Krebs
Josef Krebs has a chapbook published by Etched Press and his poetry also appears in Agenda, the Bicycle Review, Calliope, Mouse Tales Press, The Corner Club Press, The FictionWeek Literary Review, Burningword Literary Journal, The Aurorean, Inscape, Crack the Spine, The Cape Rock, Carcinogenic Poetry, and The Cats Meow. A short story has been published in blazeVOX. He’s written three novels and five screenplays. His film was successfully screened at Santa Cruz and Short Film Corner of Cannes film festivals.
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.
