A Poem A Day
Yaocheng is a university student and moves around awfully lot and Toronto is Yaocheng’s next destination.
My Strange Affinity to the One Who Shall Not Be Named
As I
finally traced down the source of my pain
I found it
deeply embedded into my skin as if it was
sewn into me with an invisible thread
When the horns blow I look up to the sky:
The pain and I are
blood relatives we are
sons and daughters of poets and
siblings of apes.
###
Yaocheng is a university student and moves around awfully lot and Toronto is Yaocheng’s next destination.
I start to miss you right after you leave
and then at night I feel a deep ache
in that need spot.
I’ve Set Out All of the Traps for Us
by Kiara Nicole Letcher
I start to miss you right after you leave
and then at night I feel a deep ache
in that need spot.
Feeling full to the brim with urgency
soft serve ice cream
melting off the cone.
Why are you holding my mouth so wide open?
So wide open in lust and embarrassment?!
Why are you seeing me so full and lush?
I see tarnished jewelry and
half-eaten birthday cake.
Don’t look at me that way
don’t you watch me like that
with your hand on the throttle
and my trap door
fully open.
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron was born in 1788 and died in 1824. He was an English poet who helped lead the Romanticism movement.
So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
Phil Huffy writes early and often at his kitchen table, casting a wide net as to form and substance. His work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies, including Schuylkill Valley Review,
by Phil Huffy
It is no longer the same sadness,
that sharp, hopeless sting,
so unremitting,
for much has faded from the mind,
and even those vivid dreams
are now most mercifully calm,
reviewing past events
only indirectly, if at all.
Our favorite tune can be heard safely,
with absence of consequence,
while familiar haunts have lost their curse
and can be driven by without effect.
.
There need be no more walks
past the old apartment steps
to wonder if the new residents
can perceive any traces of our sighs,
though it is likely that such echoes
have long since faded to the point
where only the former occupants
would be likely to notice them.
Phil Huffy writes early and often at his kitchen table, casting a wide net as to form and substance. His work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies, including Schuylkill Valley Review, Eunoia, Pangolin, Orchards Poetry, The Lyric, and several haiku publications. He has published three collections of his poems and is proud to have recorded one of them (Magic Words) as an audiobook.
Portrait
by Louis Gallo
A fine woman she was,
full of protein and lentils
and maybe some turnip greens . . .
and I saw these translated
into her everything,
Ah, so much to live for,
and even more to die for.
I’m thinking of Walt Whitman right now.
I always think of Walt Whitman.
Looks like rain tomorrow.
Wouldn’t you know.
Just when you’re thinking of
Walt Whitman and a fine woman
made of protein and lentils
and maybe some turnip greens.
The map may not be the territory
But Apophis is still headed our way.
Which sort of clinches the deal.
Four volumes of Louis Gallo’s poetry, Archaeology, Scherzo Furiant, Crash and Clearing the Attic, are now available. Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? and Leeway & Advent will be published soon. He was invited for and interview and reading of his work by National Public Radio’s program “With Good Reason,” broadcast across the country, 2021. His work appears in Best Short Fiction 2020. A novella, “The Art Deco Lung,” will soon be published in Storylandia. National Public Radio aired a reading and discussion of his poetry on its “With Good Reason” series (December 2020).
Eliana is a Brooklyn based gal. This is her first piece of poetry appearing anywhere. Other writing has shown up in Ink magazine and Kitsch. She has a fairly new
by Eliana Sara
Do you remember when
We were walking late at night
And the streetlights went out
One by one
Like every horror film you’ve ever seen
At least that’s what you said
(I never went for those personally)
And we realized we were “city folk”
who are all marked by their shared fear
of complete darkness.
We ended up holding hands
and not admitting that
we were both more afraid than we should have been.
So you went to show off
following the path through the “forest”.
Really it was just a heavily tree-lined path
but to us, that’s a forest.
At home there is always some kind of
dirty, shady, (likely broken) light.
And even if they are orange and dim
our streets are never empty.
And we aren’t left to wonder
What’s crawling through the night
And if what we hear is human
Or something full of bright
menacing smiles and baring teeth
likely faster, stronger, than you
and hungry
for meat that’s fresh–
And you told me to stop.
I thought it was funny that I scared you.
I’m sorry I scared you.
Do remember we were sure we saw a fire
and you wanted to “check it out”
I had to admire your sense of adventure
(but now I think you just wanted to save face).
I reminded you of your horror movies
and told you that it was probably,
people trying to keep warm that night.
Besides all that, the leaves crackled loudly
and could easily give us away .
Then I had to remind you
as you were walking away
(because that’s the first it occurred to me)
that the cliché of
“straying from the path”
always ends badly.
And following lights past the dark
and through the leaves can only mean
that you wander off forever.
You went anyway
but I stayed.
When the lights came back on
I couldn’t see where you had gone.
###
Eliana is a Brooklyn based gal. This is her first piece of poetry appearing anywhere. Other writing has shown up in Ink magazine and Kitsch. She has a fairly new online literary magazine: http://thefuriousgazelle.com/
For Donovan
by Sarah O’Brien
Your pants are made from the softest fabric.
You challenge me to a game of chess.
“You didn’t use your Queen enough,” you say
after winning, and I soak in this metaphor.
I was too focused on someone else’s King.
I overlooked mine—left you exposed.
Your wounds from her violence linger,
and you mistrust even me.
I ask my angels for a deeper patience.
I resist the tendencies of Past Sarah,
fearful of abandonment and change.
In a dream, we convene and toast disaster.
I press my lips gently against your arm.
You recoil at some of my touches, after her.
Sorrowful pavement, I rebuild our road.
I invite you over for a home-cooked meal.
James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal
In Your Apartment for the First Time in Months by James Croal Jackson
In your red dress you ask what you want
me to say to you but Lagunitas sips
the words I wanted in June out of me
leaving only amber hops & honey
to ooze from my mouth. You spit
a tumbleweed toward the wall
& it sticks. You say all I wanted
was to know you. Here I sink
into the quicksand of tan
leather couch. This house
was once full of orange lotuses.
We would burst flame
into bloom in the rooms
we set ablaze.
###
James Croal Jackson is the author of The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in Columbia Journal, Rattle, Hobart, FLAPPERHOUSE, and elsewhere. He edits The Mantle from Columbus, Ohio. Find him at jimjakk.com and @jimjakk.
Nkateko Masinga is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of three poetry collections: ‘The Sin In My Blackness’ (2015). ‘A War Within The Blood’
by Nkateko Masinga
what a mess i will leave you with
none the wiser, mass of fragility
baby girl, my face in miniature
turn the ache into architecture
none the wiser, mass of fragility
grow smart like mama, eloquent
turn the ache into architecture
speeches at presidential suites
grow smart like mama, eloquent
your father’s height, dizzy spins
speeches at presidential suites
hopelessly enchant the masses
your father’s height, dizzy spins
baby girl, my face in miniature
hopelessly enchant the masses
what a mess i will leave you with
###
Nkateko Masinga is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of three poetry collections: ‘The Sin In My Blackness’ (2015). ‘A War Within The Blood’ (2016) and ‘While The World Was Burning’ (2017). Her work has been published in the 2017 edition of U.S journal ‘Illuminations’ and she is a 2019 Fellow of the Ebedi International Writers Residency.
Kika Dorsey is a poet in Boulder, Colorado, and lives with her two children, husband, and Border Collie. She wakes up every morning and crafts poetry out of dreams, myths, her body, and her travels.
by Kika Dorsey
Your days fall into grass and fallen suns,
no man as broken and careless as you.
So many days I felt burnt and done,
while stars stood in place and the moon ensued
its sinking truth. Autumn strips the land
of green and geese, body defeated earth.
On the shore children mold turtles out of sand
from fire you flung from skies to melt and birth
the glass that only I can break. My hips
a red hum and the garden sleeps, rests
its weary ghost, while I trace red, your lips
to build a castle, where I reach up to wrest
the weapon from your large, loud embrace,
your fallow fingers, your sun’s shattered face.
###
Kika Dorsey is a poet in Boulder, Colorado, and lives with her two children, husband, and Border Collie. She wakes up every morning and crafts poetry out of dreams, myths, her body, and her travels. While finishing her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in Seattle, Washington, she performed her poetry with musicians and artists. Her poems have been published in The Denver Quarterly, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Comstock Review, Freshwater, The Columbia Review, among numerous other journals and books. . Her collection of poems, Beside Herself , was published by Flutter Press. Her full-length collection, Rust, came out with Word Tech Editions in 2016. Her forthcoming book, Coming Up For Air, comes out in 2018. She is an adjunct instructor of English at Front Range Community College. When not writing or teaching, she taxis her teenagers to activities, swims miles in pools, and runs and hikes in the open space of Colorado’s mountains and plains.
Tara Rigg writes about the complexities, joys, and misunderstandings of grief. She gratefully breathes in the mountain air surrounding her home in Bozeman, Montana where she lives with her husband and three young daughters. Her son
by Tara Rigg
I poured out my heart and it spilled onto the floor.
We stood
looking at it for a while.
Eventually,
I wiped it up with paper towels
as she watched.
Every visit after that
We both remembered the mess
I’d made on the floor.
But she never mentioned it.
She didn’t want to be rude.
###
Tara Rigg writes about the complexities, joys, and misunderstandings of grief. She gratefully breathes in the mountain air surrounding her home in Bozeman, Montana where she lives with her husband and three young daughters. Her son, Beau, was stillborn in 2014. Find more at www.TaraRigg.com.
by Harnidh Kaur
I used to smoke, and a lot, at that,
and I quit it, cold turkey one day-
it wasn’t easy, my nose still traces
the traces of nicotine that stain the
air like they once stained my teeth,
but I’m okay now, I suppose, I have
a list of vices that are presumably
under my control, and I count love
amongst that them, or I would, if
it actually were, but let me tell you
how love is manufactured (not by
capitalism, no, though that would
be a fine guess). There’s a certain,
remarkable maliciousness to love,
the neuroscience behind it, very
telling of how, despite all that talk
of being the most powerful predators,
we’re still prey to the fallacies
of fancy and words. The amygdala is
almond shaped, sitting pretty like
the crown jewel on the temporal
lobe, near the side of your head- you
wouldn’t notice it, unless you paid
careful attention (just like she would
have slipped away if you didn’t catch
the sparkle of her ring against the
bar’s strategic dim lighting), and its
size belies the histories of its growth
(just like how you would’ve never
guessed how a body that tiny could
hold so much anger, and beauty, and
passion), and this is where the neurons
that engage the stress response in
your body fire from (like the sparkling,
venomous barbs she shot at you,
leaving physical reactions in their
wake), leading to a fight or flight
syndrome (you barricading yourself
into the bathroom for three hours,
making winding mental lists of the
pros and cons of leaving at that very
moment), now mixed with all the
serotonin your brain could produce,
and then some more (your lips against
her neck as you felt the thrum of her
heartbeat pick up with yours), and
you fought, you fought, you fought,
first her, then the doubts, then yourself-
always finding reasons to make up
and make pretty till you found an
unknown reflection on the mirror
you never knew you had on the roof-
if you were to be diagnosed, it
would have been with addiction,
not love, not romance, not want,
not need, just sordid inability.
(but you already knew that, didn’t you?)
###
Harnidh is a 21-year-old student from India. Her first book is called The Inability of Words.
Sarah A. O’Brien studies Creative Writing and Studio Art, with a concentration in cheap red wine. She will be an alumnus of Providence College
by Sarah A. O’Brien
That joke was not funny, and I am willing to bet
Your next one isn’t either.
I am terribly sure you do not like me,
But I was banking on that to begin with.
There are too many places to be right now
And deciding is like a plane deciding to swim.
Stranded in a labyrinth of self-creation,
Turned on only because I forgot to turn it off.
Intermission at a circus seems redundant,
These clowns discarding bills for bad beer.
Memories can only be born out of faded jeans,
Shared joints, and fields of tears in mid-July.
You’re sweet, but your smile is no crescent moon.
And I can handle their annual third-degree:
Why don’t you have a boyfriend?
Are you sure you aren’t a lesbian?
Something about the sun’s selfishness on sunless days
Almost makes family gatherings less intolerable.
Will you blame me for remembering to forget you?
You do not ignite my match with an ice-hot stare.
The tightrope walk over before I realized it begun.
I blinked once; I will not make that mistake again.
###
Sarah A. O’Brien studies Creative Writing and Studio Art, with a concentration in cheap red wine. She will be an alumnus of Providence College come May 2015, although she denies this if asked. Her work has appeared in Snapping Twig, The Screech Owl, The Alembic, and Copley Hall of Art. She has been following her dreams for a while now, but has yet to receive a follow back: @fluent_SARAcasm.
Miki Fukuda’s poems have appeared in journals including Talking Writing, Off the Coast, Earthlines, Contemporary Verse 2, Eighteen Bridges and PRISM international and are forthcoming
by Miki Fukuda
Sever your right hand,
set it free in the ocean
saltier than blood.
A smoke of bloody
nebulae the burgeoning
image—
Eight-fingered, your vision
holds, consumes the sea.
You are the hand, speed-
reading brailed white sand, a page-
ful of blue fishes and coral reefs,
the hand jumping
on a conclusion—a meaty
crab. Grab, crack,
Swallow.
###
Miki Fukuda’s poems have appeared in journals including Talking Writing, Off the Coast, Earthlines, Contemporary Verse 2, Eighteen Bridges and PRISM international and are forthcoming in Vallum and Crannóg. Her booklet Songs from Twelve Moons of the Bear is forthcoming from Leaf Press in the Leaflet Small Book Series. She lives by the woods and lakes of Golden Acres Park, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Each day from dawn till late at night,
she only wished to do his will.
by Janice Canerdy
Each day from dawn till late at night,
she only wished to do his will.
She would be worthy in his sight.
Her love for him was at its height.
It kept her warm in winter’s chill
each day from dawn till late at night.
She knew her prince was always right.
Obeying was a cherished thrill.
She would be worthy in his sight.
She cooked and cleaned with all her might,
for there was never time to kill
each day from dawn till late at night.
They’d never passed insult or slight.
His every wish she would fulfill.
She would be worthy in his sight.
The hurtful truth then came to light.
His love for her had tempered; still,
each day from dawn till late at night,
she would be worthy in his sight.
