July 2016 | poetry
it’s in the way Glenn Gould’s lips move
around the notes
sound reaching out into air, just
beyond him
he must catch it
draw it back into his body
tight and bent
in the attack of even the most piano
of pianos which bores down center
lost and falling and weighted
then flits out, released from the
dark, the moment just before the sound
that moment, there
before sound happens,
trapped within flakes of snow
on a cold still day, disturbed
the unceasing battle
between hands, which one gets the
moment before sound,
and which after,
which demands the sharp
which the fifth
which the fattest chord
which the sostenuto
we are vocal chords and
we are plucked chords
we are the vibrato of body at seeming rest
here we become most primal
closest to the earth and of necessity
without sight
by Sarah D’Stair
Sarah D’Stair’s interests include starring in punk music videos, catching up on old episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey, and avoiding the digital revolution. She is the author of Roulettetown (Kuboa 2011) and Petrov Petrovich Is in Love (Kuboa 2016), and is currently a graduate student writing a dissertation on a subject of sublime importance.
July 2016 | poetry
“‘but painters and poets
Always have had the right to dare anything.’
We know and claim that right, and grant it in turn.”
—Quintus Horatius Flaccus
A pale arm rises from the marsh,
point up, presents a sword to the dreamer.
The dreamer grasps the blade with both hands.
Blood spreads in the bog—stirs unquiet thoughts
among bodies sleeping there.
In springtime, a white flower falls from the cherry.
It’s caught in sap oozing from a cut.
That clot of sap is buried in the fossil ground—
Becomes a translucent stone that holds
a five-pointed star in amber.
Lost armies are buried in the orchard—they await
their resurrection. Recite their names five times—
as blind worms gnaw their marrow—
become the caterpillars marching on warm flesh—
become the dusty moths circling the light.
We bind our thoughts to hieroglyphs of word—
illusions that we create to trap
the attentions of our readers’ minds.
Letters on the chaliced skull (the ink is flame)
become the spellbird that I send to you.
The egret arches forward—bows itself into flight,
unfolds his wings above the reeds—
pale trespass on an evening shore.
His feathers are floating flower petals—
every wingbeat an eternity.
by Wulf Losee
Wulf Losee lives and works in the Bay Area. His poems and short stories have appeared in journals such as Crack the Spine, Forge, FRiGG, Full Moon, The New Guard, The North Coast Literary Review, Oak Square, OxMag, Pennsylvania English, Poetalk Magazine, Rio Grande Review, SLAB, and Westview. The two cats that allow Wulf to live with him are also his severest critics. Writing poetry detracts from play time, petting time, and from feeding them treats—and they regularly show their contempt for his muse by walking nimble-footed across his keyboard.
July 2016 | poetry
The white school house, covered with years of coal dust, looks so much smaller now. A rusty flag pole, white when it adorned, lies among the busted mine machines that cover the grounds once for play. The mine gone, the coal trucks only noisy ghosts in my mind, can I have lived here?
Its little flat spot up against the steep land of the hollow where it came to be, my place to learn and grow back then. Marbles at recess, oral book reports to a room with two grades, and the growling gray trucks, humped with coal, that passed all day.
Broken windows, like eyes that only light can see, sadly look my way. And a missing door with only night beyond seems to say, “Oh yes, I loved you then. I am not so bad. Look at you now.”
by Charles Hayes
Charles Hayes, a Pushcart Prize Nominee, is an American who lives part time in the Philippines and part time in Seattle with his wife. A product of the Appalachian Mountains, his writing has appeared in Ky Story’s Anthology Collection, Wilderness House Literary Review, The Fable Online, Unbroken Journal, CC&D Magazine, Random Sample Review, The Zodiac Review, eFiction Magazine, Saturday Night Reader, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and others.
