There are so many names for things and new
things needing names that polyglots may have the fastest
Ween by Jim Sholes
Learning to Speak
by Christopher Oie Keller
There are so many names for things and new
things needing names that polyglots may have the fastest
moving feet out of any soles. Their tongues
do the legwork of multitudes; a computer is new
and the internet is new but so are ginormous Touaregs
and those phat Elantras. Every multi-million-dollar
company makes new jobs for scribes as they throw
trademarks like life preservers. They are life preservers; they
keep our dictionaries coming.
###
So You Think You Can Dance reject Christopher Oie Keller earned his MAT from Western Oregon University . A former Victoria’s Secret supervisor, he now substitute teaches in Portland . He enjoys gardening and still thinks he can dance. His work has appeared in publications such as The Delinquent, Leveler, and Fogged Clarity and will be appearing in The James Dickey Review. He also co-manages the poetry forums of DryTear.net.
Nights I go looking
for the whippoorwill
but she’s not to be found,
spotted feathers restless
as the cursive letters
in my handwriting book.
I saw bank swallows
swoop into their burrow
along the marsh,
one brood, a clutch of five.
Today’s Saturday, and
my grandfather has woven
leaves into a hand,
wrapped the biggest
one to bind.
When the market bell rings
buyers scatter
the aisles inspecting,
smelling for mold,
one stops for a moment
under the light
that through the vented
roof hits a cluster:
restoring it to
what is has been,
what it will be—
dazzlingly on fire.
###
Recipient of The Fellowship of Southern Writers Award for Poetry, Charlotte Matthews is author of two full length collections: Still Enough to Be Dreaming and Green Stars. Most recently her work has received recognition from NPR where she was the featured poet. Matthews is a professor at Hollins University and the University of Virginia. Some Saturdays she brings her 1914 Smith Corona typewriter to The Farmer’s Markets and writes poems on the spot.
and this is for
ultramarine
ink
splatters
on my wrist and
jawbone; this
is for clavicles sharpened
by crescent-moon blades
, float,
ether-lithe (hollow
bones and swollen
fingers: similar
ends [signpost
rusted; hum,
softly, origin on this
here street someone
sometime was born,
despite glass between
cobblestones])
this is for
incense-smoke imagery
scenes they slip through calloused
life-scratched palms niagra-falls-like
( flick&flow )
this
is
for desecrating paper
and crossing streets (against traffic
lights), for misidentified galaxies in 2 a.m.
skies this
is for crash and swoop and
we are alive.
###
Camille Thigpen is a Bard College student. She was a 2010 Sollentuna Library finalist in their short story competition, awared honable mention in 2011 by thestival American Library of paris for her submission to the Young authors Fiction Festival, and a Taft College Literary Magazine 3 of her poems in 2012. She had lived in Pennsylvania and Sweden, but currently is based in France.
Ultimately we must learn to accept
our losses (as constellations eventually
accept their passing one
Healing
by Richard Brobst
Ultimately we must learn to accept
our losses (as constellations eventually
accept their passing one
from another) in blue china,
tractor axles, hair brushes, time
scabs and heals relatively
as memory is numbed (in absolute
zero). Perhaps it is no more and no
less than the miles between
the words you have spoken
and the words left unspoken,
never to be spoken.
Never to be spoken
beyond stone and sod
and shovels rusting in rusting sheds
and all that is not concerned
with whispers and all
that our hands have touched.
And when do the voices begin to begin
(as a black hole that might draw
one in to see where one has been)
from dark rooms with clock-less corners
And when do they begin to end
while candles flicker the absence
of breath, or the cold feels colder,
or you shake awaiting a shawl
as the sea dries in an old woman’s breast
and you know now actually and for the first
time how small time is
The best we can hope
is nothing disturbs our death;
that it comes as clean
as a handful of ice.
###
Richard Brobst was co-founder and co-editor of the national poetry journal, ALBATROSS, from 1986-1998. He has had four collections of poetry published (ANABIOSIS PRESS and FORESTLAND PUBLICATIONS), along with many individual works in journals and anthologies, including THE SOUTHERN POETRY REVIEW, THE KENTUCKY REVIEW, PEMBROKE MAGAZINE, and FLORIDA IN VERSE; AN ANTHOLOGY.
morning bedsheet weighs a ton on same-old
hard to face no matter the season with same
knee pinch neck grind jaw pop joint ache, but
Wanda Morrow Clevenger
the bedsheet weighs in
by Wanda Morrow Clevenger
morning bedsheet weighs a ton on same-old
hard to face no matter the season with same
knee pinch neck grind jaw pop joint ache, but
one day the insurance will reinstate and
oh, the thought to shop QVC cures and sample
designer hormones blowing breast cancer scare
off the catwalk
and first thing the eyeballs hurt;
the doctor says glaucoma can’t be felt
one day sight and the next, WHAM, he says
for emphasis, HELEN KELLER
so keeping up the exams is crucial, your
thicker corneas are built-in protection but
they produce high readings, false readings
so regular exams are crucial
remember, WHAM, he says 4 times a year
it’s criminal the bedsheet weighs in that
only and the truly afflicted and Rosanne Barr
qualify for medical marijuana
###
Wanda Morrow Clevenger lives in Hettick, IL. Over 160 pieces of her work appear in 62 print and electronic publications. Her debut book This Same Small Town in Each of Us, a collection of memoir, poetry and flash fiction, released on October 30, 2011. She is currently compiling her first poetry manuscript for query. To view a sampling of published and new work, visit her blog It’s All Just Telling Tales Out of School: http://wlc-wlcblog.blogspot.com/
I was snow starved all this time
Was eager for the fall to
Skirt in its random leaves and make way
For the white candy floss
Snow Starved
by Shweta Garg
I was snow starved all this time
Was eager for the fall to
Skirt in its random leaves and make way
For the white candy floss
I was snow starved all this time
Had little crumbs of the polaroids
Munched nuggets of frost
Scrapped from old refrigerators
I was snow starved all this time
And was stuffed by the spokes in a flake
The giant blanket of snow
Smothered a tropical flower of my desire
###
Shweta Garg is an academician turned creative writer from India. Her poems have been published nationally and internationally. She is currently working on her debut book of fiction. She likes to travel and eat.
I wish for one day
I could be someone else
To say what they say
To feel what they felt
For One Day
by Michael Vinciguerra
I wish for one day
I could be someone else
To say what they say
To feel what they felt
I want a new mind
A new body; a new heart
I want to be able to find
What I looked for from the start
I wish for one time
I was you instead of me
To see through your eyes
To see what you see
I want new dreams
New desires; new goals
New fabric at the seams
And a way to this plug this hole
I want a new direction
A new purpose, a new meaning
If I want perfection
I’ll audition for screenings
I want new gloves
New family, new friends
Except the ones I love
Are invited to attend
I wish for a moment
I could see inside your head
And all of its components
To say the things you said
Because I feel worn down
So jaded and so cold
Its time to pass the crown
Because I am getting old
I feel on most days
Forgotten and removed
I’m someone you throw away
Like a pair of worn out shoes
You don’t understand
What its like to be me
So lets not pretend
I have a healthy body
You don’t want to know
The thoughts in my head
They once brightly glowed
But now they spell out dread
So let us start over
Please God if you may
Wishing upon clovers
For brighter, better days
###
Michael Vinciguerra is 24 years old living in the Bronx, New York. Michael father died when at the age of 49 and Michael inherited his heart condition that led to his heart attack. Michael had a stroke when I was 11 from which he never fully recovered, but he made it through high school and college attending Fordham University where he acquired a Master’s degree in Communications and Media. He am toying with the idea of pursuing a Ph.D in the same field of study.
Despite a notice in the paper
Requesting contributions
In lieu of flowers,
They continued to arrive,
Remember
by Art Heifetz
Despite a notice in the paper
Requesting contributions
In lieu of flowers,
They continued to arrive,
Like uninvited guests,
The buds of bereavement
The petals of sorrow,
A lush memorial of
Stately peace lilies with stylish fronds,
Thorny bushes of miniature roses,
Daffodils like prissy schoolgirls,
The flimsy pots swaddled
In crinkly green foil,
The senders identified by
Brief notes of consolation
Clipped to plastic stakes
Pressed firmly in the soil.
At the first heady rush
Of temperate weather,
He planted them in his garden,
The roses beside the mailbox
The daffodils in the rear,
Encircling the massive oak
Which towered above the deck,
And the lilies by the birdbath.
He marveled at their
Rare exuberance,
Returning year after year,
Thrusting their stems
Insistently
Through the hard clay soil,
Their blooms growing
Ever more exquisite
Even as the faces
Of the ones he’d loved
Grew fainter,
As if the dead were
Reaching out to him
And saying,
We once were thus,
Remember us.
###
Retired State Farm insurance agent, returning to his first love, poetry. At urging of friends, began to publish in June. 16 poems accepted thus far. Life begins at 66.
My genes are customized denim:
unique, a one-off design. The
Left leg is forty shades of green,
tough, durable, for roaming
in wild, damp places.
The right is practical, calm
as red-white-&-blue, sailing
the seas of maritime history
Yet black as ebony, vibrating
secrets of imperial angst
in shrouded sails of mystery.
Their victory,
Is the me I like to wear.
###
Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1958, dragged up, as opposed to brought up, on two sides of the Irish sea, I then lived on the High Seas, and Waterways of Life, and am only now coming into berth, on the far western shores.
He rolls off the sofa
Stumbles into the kitchen
The table’s a riot
Coffee
by Tim Heron
He rolls off the sofa
Stumbles into the kitchen
The table’s a riot
Cigarette butts macerate
In yesterday’s drinks
He stares blankly
His stomach empty
His skin sweaty
In yesterday’s clothes
He swallows a cup
Of coffee
Cold
Glances
At the clock
Hands
Locked
Will tomorrow
Never come
###
Born in Belfast the year of the Chernobyl meltdown, I was raised on red wine and dusty books in France.
Since then I’ve been searching for myself and stumbling through life, at times amazed by beauty and symmetry, at times intrigued by the dark and profane.
I publish my poems on the following blog : http://justtheash.tumblr.com/tagged/poem
Twin blossoms bowed
by the weight of white beauty
upon a single stem
twilight
whispered secrets
songs that any small
harsh wind might shake
break upon the concrete ground
brother and sister
unblemished chalices
to the glass brim
our still thoughts dreaming
two blossoms seeming
but one heart
###
Grace Andreacchi is an American-born novelist, poet and playwright. Works include the novels Scarabocchio and Poetry and Fear, Music for Glass Orchestra (Serpent’s Tail), Give My Heart Ease (New American Writing Award) and the chapbook Berlin Elegies. Her work appears in Horizon Review, The Literateur, Cabinet des F’es and many other fine places. Grace is also managing editor at Andromache Books and writes the literary blog AMAZING GRACE. She lives in London.
All I want
is to lose myself,
to drown in the ink.
If life could be still long enough,
if I could find the right cliff,
my words would flow forth
like a war cry,
like a kiss.
###
Austin Bagwell, 21, is from Amarillo, Texas. His work has appeared in The Legacy, West Texas A&M University’s student literature publication.
blindness bleed
war sounds dim
past, passing, or to come
Overindulge.
in the arms of sea
sailing her music
to shore
Will we.
evolutionize
whatever lives
on land
until they
fly no more
###
Andrew J. Stone lives and writes in Southern California with two cats and coffee. He sleeps in the sunshine. His work has appeared in over fifty literary journals including Full of Crow, Misfits’ Miscellany, & The Toucan Mag. In 2010, he received a national Gold Medal from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for his poetry. Recently, he finished a chapbook of ekphrastic poetry and is currently seeking publication. He can be found where the graveyard is always full: http://andrewjstone.blogspot.com/
After our birthday party, I took the picture.
You and your new bicycle: a shiny ten-speed
whose spokes spun fireworks
when the sun caught you in flight.
My new lens drew you out of that winter day.
My nose pressed against the cold plastic
like your first signs of womanhood
behind your child-sized sweater.
A ceremonious photo because
years earlier you had asked me
would I learn you to ride a bike,
our mother swept along by the new life
that rolled through her, swelled her round.
I sent you gently down
the curl of lawn
soon you flew, fear
gave way to passion,
tires spun in perfect rounds ~
roulette wheels you could
stop at will.
While our mother buttered
store-bought bread, trailed
the stream of spilled milk, chased
Winter afternoons around six square
rooms and too many children,
I watched the clean spin of you,
five years behind me in this whirl.
Now, as a grown woman, you ask me
what it means to want for passion,
and the deep dark secrets that we tumble through
how can we pull May out of February?
I look at you
across our birthday dinner, scraps
of foreign food, pieces of wrapping torn
from our grown-up gifts, and I cannot answer.
Because, like you sister, I do not know.
###
Martha Hayes, Professor of English at Gateway Community College in New Haven Connecticut, is a poet and essayist, whose work has appeared and is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, including Freshwater, Fresh Ink, Naugatuck River Review, Vermont Literary Review, and Journey to Crone. Her poem, Ella Clare won first prize in the 2010 Altrusa International of Central Connecticut Poetry Contest. She has presented her innovative teaching ideas at worldwide conferences in countries as diverse as China, Nepal, and Brazil. An ambitious traveler, her poetry has been inspired by scenarios as varied as the jungle solitude of Mayan ruins and the claustrophobic warrens of the Medina in Fez, Morocco.
