I lie beyond the narrow sandy strand,
A jagged mote upon the horizon,
A rugged speck upon the ocean.
Sailors skirt past my flanks in morbid dread.
My dark hollows house the unshriven dead.
I lie amongst the angry, swelling waves.
Churning foam obscures my treacherous shoals,
Doom for innumerable imperilled souls.
Wretched spirits weep on my savage shore,
Unheard above Poseidon’s constant roar.
I lie shrouded in a bleak, swirling mist,
Cloaked in an eternal obscurity,
Wracked by a turbulent, restless sea.
Haggard spectres drift amidst my grey stones,
Vainly searching for their sun-bleached bones
I lie beyond a mortal’s tenuous ken,
A dismal harbour for woeful secrets,
A forlorn abode of abject regrets.
Rendered barren by the sea’s bitter breath,
My rocky bosom knows nothing but death.
(Poem originally published in Illumen Issue 8, Spring 2008.)
In the bus station
I was near enough
To be master of ceremonies,
Seeing them on their way.
But I had no idea,
Let alone imagination,
For what rolled toward me
On the dolly.
An ice chest, and I thought
It odd that someone would send
Such a thing on a bus,
Near midnight, from Houston
Or anywhere at all.
Then I read the label –
FRAGILE – HUMAN EYES FOR TRANSPLANT.
Later, on the bus
Rolling down the highway,
I couldn’t sleep.
I thought of them down below,
Wedged between boxes and suitcases,
Jostled on bumps and curves.
How they had no brain
To let them know a thing,
Where they were going
Or why.
I thought of my own life,
In transit once again.
My brain couldn’t tell me
What was ahead either,
Only that I was on my way.
I got off in the Rio Grande Valley,
While they continued.
In the dark forest under the haze
absent the moon’s silvery rays,
when the night is black and still
the witches hold a blackbird’s quill.
They, merrily, jot down names
of naughty children
to beat them with disdain.
Their greenish eyes are frightful,
their ghostly hair quite dreadful.
They boil the bones of forest owls,
of hairy rats and ugly fowl,
in a large caldron as they cackle,
“Abracadabra, dung of a zebra,”
as Apollo rises from the shadows.
They cast their spells with horrid chants.
rousing frogs, toads and bats,
They aim to turn errant children,
into legions of moles and rats.
On guard, child, the witches prowl
and cast the spells I’d hate to see,
and in the morning, as you shower,
if you’re not careful, a toad you’ll be.
LAS BRUJAS (para niños grandes)
Es en el monte bajo la bruma,
donde no hay rastro de clara luna,
en lo más negro de la negrura,
están las brujas con una pluma.
Anotan, locas, los niños malos
para en la noche darles de palos.
Tienen los ojos verdes y raros
y los cabellos grises y ralos.
En una olla cuecen los huesos
de aves nocturnas de feo gesto;
“Abracadabra, barbas de cabra”
cantan las brujas venida el alba.
Encantar piensan a los incautos,
hipnotizando con su feo canto.
Ranas y sapos de niños malos
piensan hacerlos para su daño.
Cuídate, nene, que vienen brujas
a tu camita donde te arrullan
y en la mañana cuando te duchas
Sapo serás, si no me escuchas.
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.
You and I went looking last summer for raspberries
and, finding none, were forced to admit
that we have no idea what the bushes look like.
I don’t know your excuse,
but I never needed to look for raspberries before.
I always had them pressed upon me.
Uncle Eilert dropped them every summer afternoon
into his plastic ice cream pail,
not stopping until it was full to the brim.
All except the top layer would be crushed.
My mother said they were perfect
for spooning on angel food cake,
but I wished for perfect raspberries,
ones that hadn’t been ruined by the weight of ambition.
Although today is cold and blustery,
I have beside me some raspberries from Mexico,
whole and complete in their gleaming plastic box,
for they traveled that distance in one single layer.
I want to say their perfection makes them better,
but in fact they fail to engage my attention.
No matter how much I chew them,
they refuse to taste like raspberries should.
It was the pressure, I finally realize,
that released all the flavor of my uncle’s berries.
Too much perfection is beautiful
but may not be worth biting into.
It is the messy things that are full of life and flavor.
Marne Wilson lives in Parkersburg, West Virginia. She is the author of two chapbooks: The Bovine Daycare Center (Finishing Line, 2015) and As Lovers Always Do (forthcoming from Etchings Press).
I’m building shells
on my beloved one’s hearts
hard laden steel sticks
crossed on their chest
shielding heartbreaks
I’m building filters
on their ears
I’m eliminating cruelty
from reach
sword words
and serpents’ hiss
I’m setting flames
on their mouths
candle tongues
burning in rage
crunching lightning
out of storms
I’m building shells from shells
for all stricken arrows
facing their doors
to bounce back in turmoil
###
BiNkwana Joshua Serutle is a poet, who was born and raised outside Burgersfort in a small village of Ga-Kgwete. His work draws more attention on the streets and shifting paradigms on social issues. In 2017 he enrolled at Mzansi Poetry Academy to enhance his writing skills. Some of his highlights in 2017 includes being on theTop 10 finalist for Leleme La Mme poetry competition. He won the CSP 2018 Open Slam King of the Mic. His poems had been published on Poetry Potion, Odd Magazine, Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology Vol 8, MuseIndia, Avbob Poetry Competition and Best “New” African Poets 2018 Anthology.
the wet clay
peeled
with sucking sounds
straight
from the spade. I was eight.
my father dug,
wanting to show
that he could bend the world
to city hands. the house
had been
a long time
unoccupied
before we took it; trees grew in the kitchen
and the plaster walls would crumble
to even my
weak touch.
they’d got it cheap,
my parents,
and intended
eventually
that it would be broken
like a dog
and forced to piss
outside. there were spiders
living in every corner
and a long war
was waged against the mice
and the rabbits on the hill.
as a fire escape
heavy stones
were placed on each windowsill
and the paint was done
to keep the damp out of the woodwork
and seal the place
for visitors.
but bad Irish weather
fell down
and crushed minds
like the top of a the mountain behind us.
it engulfed the place
like frogspawn
clumping on rocks.
pride lost;
I don’t know
the last time
anyone
has bothered to visit.
DS Maolalai has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize. His first collection, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden”, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press, with “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” forthcoming from Turas Press in 2019.
At 68 you dream
that you are flunking math
will never graduate from college
awake a total failure
it takes twenty minutes to remember
that you have a Ph.D.
a successful career
You crack
you break
parts chip off
you strive to be better
rarely succeed
Someone doesn’t like your poems
someone does
most are indifferent
the chip is on your shoulder
Time is both savior and executioner
You live long enough
to have something to say
but not long enough
to say it fully
You want to grow into yourself
but aren’t sure what that means
you resist common conformity
but want to be loved and admired
Life is a crossword puzzle
with no clues
you fill in the blanks
and hope that
what goes down and across
intersects
spells p e a c e
e
a
c
e
###
Charlie Brice is a retired psychoanalyst and is the author ofFlashcuts Out of Chaos (2016), Mnemosyne’s Hand (2018), and An Accident of Blood (forthcoming), all from WordTech Editions. His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net anthology and twice for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal, The Paterson Literary Review,and elsewhere.
I did the worst thing a writer could do:
Forgot to pack my journal in my bag,
My book of incantations across town,
I’m forced to interact, to be present.
It means I have no escape, no recuse,
Demeanor resembling some sense of truth,
Offering a handshake, a nod, a smile,
Supposedly teaching future leaders.
The students ask me why I am so sad,
I shake it off, explain it’s not that bad,
Mercutio was right about Queen Mab
Disseminating dreams from chariots.
Forcing conversations and gleaning hope,
My book of secrets still remains at home,
Alexander P. Garza is a writer, actor, and educator from Houston, TX. His work can be seen in The Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, Penwood Review, Magnolia Review (forthcoming), Nine Muses Poetry (forthcoming), Little Rose Magazine, Ariel Chart, Literal Magazine, and Broadway World Houston. He has worked on and offstage at The Alley Theatre, Houston Grand Opera, Main Street Theater, and Mildred’s Umbrella Theatre Company. Visit him on Instagram/Twitter, @alexanderpgarza, and on his website http://www.alexanderpgarza.com.
He had a thing for plaid skirts.
It’s what I tell them when they call.
An apology, the best I have.
He had a thing for rulers,
and chalk and knee-high socks
with shiny black buckled shoes.
He had a thing for red marks,
for pigtails, for commands.
It was harmless. I believed
it was harmless.
But he had a thing for plaid skirts,
A little thing for little plaid skirts.
###
Victoria Walters is an accomplished poet who has studied at Lafayette College in Easton Pennsylvania. Recent adventures include a study term in London which inspired a whole new style of writing. She prefers to spend her life behind the lens and aims to capture the world through images and ink.’
Late Spring On The Potomac River Near Hancock, Maryland
by Robert Halleck
Cold water numbs legs
putting canoes into the
river. Partially leafed trees
cover the recent remains
of floods: a Styrofoam cooler,
bottles, a one armed shirt.
Leaning back, paddling down-
stream is easy. Small Bass
fooled by lures are released
to someday be fooled for the
last time. The current and
white water will shrink in summer
heat to expose sentinel rocks
leaking their gift of salt to
a downstream sea.
###
Robert Halleck has been writing poetry since 1958. His recent work has appeared in the San Diego Poetry Annual, Chiron, Third Wednesday, The Peeking Cat Review, and Main Street Rag. He is a member of San Diego’s Not Dead Yet Poets and hopes to remain so for a long time. For a number of years he has attended the Kenyon Review’s Summer Workshop.
Regards weather-worn ecclesiastical terms,
the word “peculiar” refers
to all districts outside of Church jurisdiction
or — updated to this Climate Change Age —
our small lackluster operation
(still heroically steam-driven) which does
get a disdainful comeuppance from robotic
enumerated odd ubiquitous A.I.
non-human eyes and ears but no Nero body.
###
Gerard Sarnat is a physician who’s built and staffed homeless and prison clinics as well as a Stanford professor and healthcare CEO. He won the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award plus the Dorfman Prize, and has been nominated for Pushcarts plus Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is published in academic-related journals including Stanford, Oberlin, Brown, Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth, Arkansas, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Wesleyan, Slippery Rock, Appalachian State, Grinnell, American Jewish University and the University of Edinburgh, University of Canberra. Gerry’s writing has also appeared widely including recently in such U.S. outlets as Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, MiPOesias, American Journal Of Poetry, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Circle, Clementine, Tiferet, Foliate Oak, New Verse News, Blue Mountain Review, Danse Macabre, Canary Eco, Fiction Southeast, Military Experience and the Arts, Poets And War, Cliterature, Qommunicate, Texas Review, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, The Los Angeles Review and The New York Times. Pieces have also been accepted by Chinese, Bangladeshi, Hong Kongese, Singaporian, Canadian, English, Irish, Scotch, Australian, New Zealander, Australasian Writers Association, Zimbabwean, French, German, Indian, Israeli, Romanian, Swedish, Moscovian and Fijian among other international publications. Mount Analogue selected KADDISH FOR THE COUNTRY for pamphlet distribution nationwide on Inauguration Day 2017. Amber Of Memory was chosen for the 50th Harvard reunion Dylan symposium. He’s also authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), and Melting the Ice King (2016). Gerry’s been married since 1969 with three kids, five grandsons and looking forward to future granddaughters.
One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)
O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of
a determin’d man.
O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all
untied and illumin’d!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
To be absolv’d from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and
you from yours!
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
To have the gag remov’d from one’s mouth!
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.
O something unprov’d! something in a trance!
To escape utterly from others’ anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!
To be lost if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.
###
Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819-March 26, 1892) is the father of modern poetry.
