Category: Poetry

It’s so geometrical up here.
Our house is flat-topped.
The other summits in view
make a child’s drawing of peaks.
Wedge tops and gable triangles
asphalt-shingled in shades of charcoal,
brick oven browns, forest greens
scarred from exposure. Up above here
a panorama of three-sided tubes.
Seven brick chimneys, sisters
of one hundred twenty-five years,
sit their squareness as sentinels.

Sparrows speed by and lodge
on a twig at my head height.
Watch them breezing out on that limb.
The landscape is pleasure sidekicked with fear.
Vertigo calls from the sudden edge.
Without railings, this viewpoint
is bordered by neckbreak.
We’ve watched fireworks, shoveled snowdrifts
paltry feet from the vacant air.

The summer afternoon is empty.
One dormer window, venetian blind
drawn. Over the turquoise bodega,
another’s tar beach with pergola,
fence, lawn furniture, nobody out.
Sounds of motor growl, tire chafe,
imperative honks. I’m alone,
rubber roof-spread warming my jeans,
with cloud-clustered green,
the maple seed pendants,
and this solo seagull, suspended.

The ocean on the western side,

estuary to the east.  Paved road

meanders across the bridge, like

a grandfather with an old story

 

to unpack. A walking path flanks

the road, gathers broken bits

of mussel shells, deer vertebrae,

alder cones.  Because it is spring,

 

green spruce pollen marks pavement

in galactic splatters.  Beard lichen

drapes above your head, whispy

to your fingertips when you stretch.

 

There are crows, ravens, & kingfishers.

Great blue herons fish the tidal zone

shallows, their beady eyes intent, hunting

darting salmon fry at their feet.

 

So this is Starrigavin. An afternoon walk

with a bag of oyster crackers in your hand

to feed inquisitive corvidae.  You push

into the wind, it lifts your hair to join

 

fluttering beard moss and you swear,

you swear you could lift your arms,

transformed wings, join the feathered,

and fly.

---

Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, Alaskan. When not exploring the summer lands and dark winter of the Yukon, she lives in Sitka, Alaska. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing (University of Alaska Anchorage) and recently published her first collection of poetry Something Yet to Be Named (Aldrich Press, 2017).  Kersten is the poetry editor of the quarterly journal, Alaska Women Speak www.kerstenchristianson.com

 

Cats on the loose, sizzling,

hissing, rubbing each other raw.

You in the kitchen chatting

with a famous Chinese poet

whose work features on scrolls

and reproduction pottery

 

peddled in gift shops everywhere.

His purely suede expression

suggests he’s forming a lyric

while attending to every nuance

of your perfected malformation.

You ignore my cries for help,

 

my attempts to corral the cats

and prevent them from savaging

each other’s most comely smiles.

A tiger whacks a tortoise-shell

with a pawful of sheathed claws

while an orange tabby nibbles

 

a crouching calico’s neck.

With armsful of blustering felines

I hustle into the garage and catch

a stranger rummaging manuscript

I abandoned twenty years ago.

What forces have you compelled

 

to bear upon the simple life

I’ve cultivated to contain me?

After waving a rake at the burglar

and locking the tangle of cats

into the garage I’m free to shake

the visiting poet’s hand and learn

 

how little English he speaks,

how little Chinese I speak,

how little any of us understand

the cries and contortions of cats,

essential elements of landscapes

we aren’t allowed to inhabit.

---

William Doreski’s work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently A Black River, A Dark Fall (Splash of Red, 2018).

Unwashed

dip into pockets hugging fat

thighs on tourist boats, snatch

loose locks on shop gates

— thief

 

Warmed

hold the blowpipe to shape liquid

fire, manipulating elements, a key

from Murano lights transformation

—glassblower

 

Smoothed

from Conakry to Douala hold up packs

of pirated Guccis following through

dusty alleys to Piazza San Marco

— bag vendor

Calloused

slide palms down the oar to push

off from docks into busy canals,

old-aged lovebirds in tow

—gondolier

 

Soft

arrange mass-produced ornaments

in the window again this morning;

wrap one in wax paper, English

—shop owner

 

Steady

set plates of pasta on narrow tables,

bringing more olives for a brighter

tip, this is Italian food my friends

—waiter

 

Fingernail-painted

pick and choose, seek your spouse

for a second opinion, the right piece

to carry home, credit card critical

—tourist

 

Pocketed

at the top of the food chain, consumes

even church and canal — if a bargain;

cut soil, come modern commodes

—tourist #2

 

Buried

of the Veneti, unknown. More than

Pound, Mušič, Nono. Beyond San

Michele. In the sea. Lost. Scarred

—forgotten

 

---

Timothy B. Dodd is from Mink Shoals, WV.  His poetry has appeared in The Roanoke Review, Stonecoast Review, Ellipsis, Broad River Review, and elsewhere.  He is currently in the MFA program at the University of Texas El Paso.

 

You dream you would hammer

your scorn into perfect circles

from on high like the iron wheels

of a predatory night hawk.

You would prey on any

isosceles triangle within grip,

rip it into angles of judgment

as acute as a golden eagle’s cocked eye.

Your shadow would be as a vulture’s

mean and dirty parallelogram

in the raw morning sky.

 

But, you wake instead,

the spoiled caged cockatoo,

clip-winged, inside a square

of domesticity

on a low bamboo perch

of limited horizons,

squawking white with resentment.

 

Life did not let you fly

into wild cones of power.

 

---

Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 600+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 12 books to her credit, the newest of which is Bunchberries, More Poems of Canada, a sequel toGodwit:  Poems of Canada (FootHills), which received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. Forthcoming this fall is Psyche’s Scroll, a full-length poem, published by The Poetry Box Selects. She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye. Visit her blog, Vagabond Poe Redux, athttp://karlalinn.blogspot.com. Google her name to learn more; Tweet @LinnMerrifiel;https://www.facebook.com/karlalinn.merrifield.

 

 

Such uneven walls,

long abided though aged.

Just look at the old place—

a snug place, a small place,

offering solace, a tepid bath,

a quiet meal

and granting the view

out back to familiar scenes.

 

Some cold comfort came

amid these empty rooms.

Warm nights, or lonely ones,

and sunny mornings watching

the street though grimy panes

before exiting

for a day’s endeavors,

emerging to city sounds.

 

A few secrets will be

left behind, forgotten soon;

some chapters closed

or locked away, abandoned.

They can languish here,

and after some paint

and such the next along will

come take up the narrative.

---

Phil Huffy is a repurposed lawyer from Rochester, New York.  He was formerly a hobbyist songwriter and one -man band, but he left the group in a huff.  Recent placements include Poets Reading the News, The Lyric, Westward Quarterly and Better Than Starbucks.

 

A poem about a man trampled

by starlight, his ropes creaking.

The man as a red berry crushed

between god-teeth, a blood-fat flea,

his bones carved into dice, man-guts

fluttering like flowery ribbons, the

Black Lord’s soul-clamps straining

to be purposeful, flesh creeping as

they opened up his skull that night,

the hard-as-diamond cranium, with

a titanium-coated handsaw. Do you

know that taste, our disappointment?

Here I am, the man insists,

more of a threat than an answer.

---

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are ‘The So-Called Sonnets (Silenced Press), ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’ (Cawing Crow Press) and ‘Like As If” (Pskis Porch), all available via Amazon.

 

Come with me and tour the urban prairie—Detroit

apocalyptic—no garbage pickup, street lights out,

houses windowless, like refugees sagging shoulder

 

to shoulder behind wire. You can buy one if you wish,

if you have vision, a couple thousand and some elbow grease.

You can be a Motown pioneer—the next great Black or White

 

Hope. Do you remember, though, before Japan, before the crash,

Fords and Chryslers rolling off the line, the suburbs rippling

out on churning pistons? Or what about the Ren Cen, rising

 

like a stack of black Dixie cups near Greek Town to flaming

saganaki and cries of Opa! Back then, we didn’t have to sell

the art from our museum, carrying the sad frames past

 

the Rivera mural in the courtyard championing Industry

and The Working Man. Back then, our freeways pulsed,

our schools had children. Now we’re a cautionary tale.

 

People come to see what a metropolis will look like

after an event. Detroit’s was economic—what about

where you live? You know it’s coming. Wait for it.

 

---

Devon Balwit is the author of seven chapbooks and three longer collections of poetry. Her individual poems can be found in places such as: Peacock Review, Eclectica, The Ekphrastic Review, Punch-Drunk Press, Anti-Heroin Chic, Panoplyzine, Under a Warm Green Linden, taplit mag, Cordite, Rattle. 

 

I feel the concrete crack

and break, a building bleeds

on lotion and cappuccino

handshakes. Soul-on-stilts

 

civilization lives over drained

egret land, flowing dryly away

to the sea on a bed of dead

woodpeckers. And who decided

 

to change the color of lips?

Those were wetlands.

Those were silver breaths.

Those were swimming days.

 

The water is still somewhere under

us, if only farther down, squeezed

between highways and sharp points

of drills. Dear powders and oil

 

and artificial dyes: They will return,

the marshes. They will return, silver

breaths. They will return, swimming

days. A brine to wash damaged soil.

---

Timothy B. Dodd is from Mink Shoals, WV.  His poetry has appeared in The Roanoke Review, Stonecoast Review, Ellipsis, Broad River Review, and elsewhere.  He is currently in the MFA program at the University of Texas El Paso.

 

An oyster from Chesapeake Bay

was captured and carted away

A kitchenhand shucked him

then somebody sucked him

In all, quite a horrible day

 

---

Phil Huffy is a repurposed lawyer from Rochester, New York.  He was formerly a hobbyist songwriter and one- man band, but he left the group in a huff.  Recent placements include Poets Reading the News, The Lyric, Westward Quarterly and Better Than Starbucks.