2/1/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Erica Abbott Winkye Cheong CC How Close I Came to Breaking As a child, my Saturday evenings were spent trying not to break the ice. They say we are all born from stars but I imagine the skies must have been empty the night I was created. The paper cut on my palm line still itches from failing to fall in love without holding my breath; never shouting of my infiniteness as the car sped down Route 322. // Mental illness has been my most consistent friend and everyone else is trying to get rid of it. Fires can burn underwater. My blood is trying to extinguish me. The Earth pulses deep within its core. An orchestra’s crescendo always makes me weep. Outlining my life has been the roadmap to my survival. Gushing red rivers once threatened to replace saltwater seas. A tissue can only hold so many marbles. I wonder how many people know just how close I came to the breaking point? I Look at the Scabs On My Arms and scratch them into scars. I’m itching for some semblance of sanity while my mind swirls and they stain the surface of my skin with each frenzied opening. It has been this way since the tides first turned, since the world closed down and old wounds suddenly took on new meanings-- try to pick at something—flowers, apples, words—anything more beautiful than what can only ever be seen underneath this bleeding shell. Salty beach air tries to sting me into something more than endless hauntedness again—an unnumbing. I sink my nails into my own tidepools of iron. It foams along the cracking shoreline until the crumpled mass spills into a metallic- scented slick like oil in the middle of an ocean. Their surface layers are peeled away one tiny circle at a time. Can I can stop reopening the hole-punched trauma, until the skin grows back sandy white in the spaces my body has forgotten its own olive complexion? I look at the scabs on my arms and apologize for turning them into scars. Erica Abbott (she/her) is a Philadelphia-based poet and writer. She has been writing for over 15 years and her work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Toho, perhappened, Bandit Fiction, and other journals. She is the author of Self-Portrait as a Sinking Ship (Toho 2020), her debut poetry chapbook. She volunteers for Button Poetry and Mad Poets Society. Follow her on Instagram @poetry_erica and on Twitter @erica_abbott.
0 Comments
2/1/2021 5 Comments Poetry by Kathleen Daley rpavich CC BLEAK Now and then something kicks me Back into the shelter less wide open; To the no man’s land of those days when I couldn’t live but couldn’t die Though the reminder is brief I still feel the consuming The gaping abyss of the whoring monster Me at its edge - me in its grasp - me in its mouth. And I Sense That hole in my soul The perpetual purgatory of bleak - A craven emptiness. Feel me? When the monster fully turned on me And nothing brought a breath of reprieve Not a chemical in the world Not a bite or a beating Or my skin picked to pieces Could fill the hollow Twisted, jagged edged knives dipped in the venom of my own sickness. Freeze my eyes wide open blind. Paralyze my sighs of woe and gasps for air To silence outside of myself Nothing outwardly registers the horror As I watched the last long light of hope grows pale and small and far away . Bleak The measure of its meaning an abomination For folk like me - who know its truth Drowning in a sea of ruin at a depth others did not dive and cannot comprehend The crippling lonely horror of souls being eaten alive Hope ripped from our bodies in shark toothed, ragged tears Feeling every bite yet unable to cry out Today it is Gods care that I never forget and my prayer that I never really return Still I can’t help but ache when I see it in others (Even if I think I hate them). FIRSTS I am new to the world in ways I’ve never imagined I sleep in a room of lace curtains (no shades) So that the dawn, whether bright or grey, nudges me awake at the time I used to despise. My body clock has changed along with my experience and I am free of the dark where the creeps come out of the shadowy places and the hustlers trade services for souls. The first time In years that I saw a chemical free sunrise it terrified me. A link in the chains that held me was broken off and I witnessed life open the book on a new day. Firsts continue in this recovering life I’ve chosen. Some are painful - All are flabbergasting The first time I had a genuine good memory of my younger life and my brokenness screamed in fear. I stood my ground and let myself remember joy. Oh the tears that rained! Or the first time I made sober love The terror almost trashed the magic The vulnerability of the real competing with the iron fencing around my heart prompted a whispered prayer from within me And I was broken with a blessing of grace. Hell, the first time a cop was behind me and I didn’t have a panic attack. The first time I was able to look someone in the eye without shame And on it goes… My lace curtains remain my open door reminder of firsts Life affirming and worthwhile in the quiet communion with my Maker Just as the birds begin to sing. Kathleen Daley is a lifelong New Englander, enchanted by the muse of the seasons. She views her writing as a God gift that allows her to coax out what is hiding in the obvious. She delights in the full freedom of fiction and embraces the ‘What if?’ of a writers mind as the most stirring part of her existence. Some of her writings have recently been accepted by Gnashing Teeth publications and Short Story Avenue. At 63 years old the former addictions counselor is a lupus survivor, a staunch recovery and mental health advocate and the married mother of two grown sons. 2/1/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Jeremy Dixon William Clifford CC nightclubbing with Spring-Heeled Jack here I am in the queue to get in push past purrs Spring-Heeled Jack here in front are new people to know be a bitch grins Spring-Heeled Jack here am I too cool to dance quite right nods Spring-Heeled Jack here is the man who lets you in free more drinks shrieks Spring-Heeled Jack and here is a man who smiles at the bar drink more roars Spring-Heeled Jack so I slap the base of his pint and OOPS! smirks Spring-Heeled Jack and we howl as beer splatters his face and LEG IT! yells Spring-Heeled Jack here is what leaps beneath my skin here is how we terrify his ghost feet glide his fire eyes flame beginners Yoga with Spring-Heeled Jack don’t relax says Spring-Heeled Jack this is everything we can’t stand we don’t do as we are told we won’t lie down quietly we don’t care about balance we won’t recite Sanskrit out loud and we don’t sing here you ponce a furious hiss and a jab to the ribs from a boy you can’t name during first year assembly see all it’s bought is bad memories and just how did Dorian Gray die say Namaste breakdown you think you’re hilarious sssshhh I’m the Child of Prague one day you will chant in a temple don’t you dare try and save me see it’s released something already at Lake Crystal with Spring-Heeled Jack hmm he says this is what happens when you’re left alone hiding in dormitories avoiding mealtimes fearing ripped men worked up on the water remember death doesn’t scare us now monsters are always well hidden they are capable we lurk beneath the gleam the ghost of every black eye a knife of shining bruises Jeremy Dixon (he/him) is a queer poet and maker of Artist’s Books from Cardiff, Wales. His poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Found Poetry Review, HIV Here & Now, Impossible Archetype, Lighthouse Journal, Riptide Journal, Roundyhouse and other print and online magazines. His debut poetry collection IN RETAIL was published by Arachne Press in 2019. 2/1/2021 1 Comment Poetry by Leia John Felipe Tofani CC A Pool Skimmer Battles for life happen in the desert; saints, demoniacs, madmen, Jesus. My desert was a shitty community pool, brimming with gallons of toddler piss and ruptured fart bubbles. I'd hopped the fence at 4 a.m. fearful I'd skewer my cunt and be stuck like that under the humid moonless Florida sky. I'd jumped in with my, No. His clothes on, like some pathetic Ophelia. Even my Chuck Taylor's which made me feel so Rock 'n Roll. I could hear my breathing, my heartbeat; In. Thump, thump. Out. Thump, thump. And I sent up a prayer to whatever God was listening. Even if it was nothing at all. Just let me die, in this piss filled pool and in the morning some poor slob can fish me out. Long handled skimmer; and me too dead to care about the burden. Leia John is a writer, seminarian and human rights activist based in New York, USA. She studies Social Ethics and theology at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan and is currently an intern at the General Board of Global Ministries at the United Nations. Her passion for writing began at a young age and blossomed in to a full-on compulsion in her late teens. When she is not busy attempting to survive on coffee in an effort to finish her school work, she is either furiously scribbling in her notebook or writing for www.poemsthatsuck.com 2/1/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Kaisa Saarinen Colby Stopa CC spectral anguish it is simple to become a ghost still bones still heart remains in solitude wintry windows pitch dark screens good girls shall be seen not heard good ghosts stay in forever waiting (i know that is not true) (nobody ever told me that and yet) no destruction in my fingertips i always wanted to sing but opened my mouth to be terror-struck how does a child like that ever learn to haunt (one day one bright blue day may come of being exorcised by you my love) a phantom pain in the larynx a fading light on the switchboard i will never make the call one rainy sunday reimagine the wheel lovers on a honeymoon high hot air balloons everything that goes up must come down stretching and stretching isolated horizons til they break down in threads of synthetic fibers gazing at a world choked with plastic and concrete and seeing normality the heart of green growth is a black hole of greed what grows from soil like this? the most parasitic executioners are the most bright-eyed dreamers whimsical birds of prey true believers in a righteous pecking order everything appears to be in its right place nuclear cooling towers and glimmering oil fields replaced by infinite solar panels blanketing the earth walk closer and see they are covered in mould and algae ‘the flooding around here has been crazy, they were not designed to be waterproof and now they’ve been submerged up to fifteen hours a day’, says an exasperated engineer. what is there to do but nod and sigh from afar, it was such a beautiful vision geometrical grids of picture-perfect postmodernity one where we need not cannibalise the earth for buried treasure in a world like this we hide the ugly innards a perfectly paced series of minor chords more thrilling than lived-in heartbreaks give me a silhouette of a windfarm on a pretty coastline and i’ll smile for the rest of the afternoon citizens of orphan ideologies in darkened nurseries may find themselves closer to each other when you have nothing it isn’t easy to share, it is essential when you are part of everything a process with no conclusion Kaisa is a research analyst and writer trying and usually failing to make sense of the world. She grew up in the Finnish countryside and escaped as quickly as possibly, ending up in London via Glasgow, Tokyo and Oxford. 2/1/2021 0 Comments Poetry by William R. Soldan William Clifford CC Like Any Other It’s a blur of years and detox beds and concrete cells and broken oaths and judgments. Before that it’s night and he lies curled on a stranger’s couch, barely able to keep water down, in the dark as interstate traffic paints the dingy walls with smears of light. Before that he Pollocks the sticky tile floors of a Wendy’s single-serve shitter with his insides. Before that he retches in a roadside ditch at dawn while some black-toothed hag changes a flat tire and orders him in her rusty voice to watch for the cops. Before that they’re driving, looking for someone he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care because his body is pricked with warm rain, his head stuffed with beautiful cotton. Before that they climb mountains of boxes and clothes in search of a place to worship and she gives him a bottle of pink liquid to drink while she crushes little white pills and chokes her bony arm with a knotted shoelace and shoots them in her wrist. Before that it’s night and she’s saying, “Wanna take a ride?” Before that he’s manning the kegs at a party picked at random, someone asking, “Who do you know here?” and he’s saying “Dave” because chances are there’s a Dave, there’s always a Dave. Before that it’s the humming freeway to another city. Before that it’s early on a Friday. Before that he’s bored, just bored. Before that he’s lonely kid, just like any other. Eulogy for Jessica “But after a while they forgot about him, and his breath failed without anybody’s noticing. He simply went under. He died. I am still alive.” —Denis Johnson, “Out on Bail” An old friend told me of an old friend’s death, asked would I help make him remembered. She’d sat alone at the viewing because no one had told the world he was no longer in it. She said, I can’t let our son think his father didn’t matter. So I pored over Denis Johnson, because who else could say it right? But as I’ve said, he was an old friend, more a peer from schooldays, so maybe I’m not the best to choose, though I’d try. We’d gone down a similar road, I’d heard, a road that for all its nuance is the same road leading to the same dead end. That I am here and he is not is no miracle, but instead the toss and tumble of a different crapshoot. Snake eyes versus the lucky seven. All the strategy in the world and it’s gravity that has the final say. I find myself here, remembering a man who was last a kid when I knew him, and turning toward myself, as we do, wondering what words will be unearthed when my time finally comes, as it will. Is it possible not to become selfish like this in the face of our own mortality? To not come up empty and silent when at last there’s a need to speak? To not collide with that old fear of being forgotten because, even though there is evidence of your life in the scars you’ve left on so many hearts, there are no words? Because really, there never are at times like this. William R. Soldan is a writer from Youngstown, Ohio. He is the author of the story collections In Just the Right Light and Lost in the Furrows, as well as the forthcoming poetry collection So Fast, So Close and two more books of fiction. His work has appeared widely in print and online publications, some of which can be found at williamrsoldan.com if you'd like to read more. He can also be found on Twitter @RustWriter1 if you'd like to connect. 2/1/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Perla Kantarjian Jack Blundell CC for Alice, Alibinoni’s Adagio in G minor a decade later: in it myself and the after-thought of the waltz of a woman she must have been in her days — Alice, the once black-haired, white-faced widow, orphan, pianist. her two-bedroom home reeking naphthalene, festoons of synthetic christmas flowers from Paris in the 50s celebrating the slow passing of every season sun-drying in her ancient shadow, coloring her air & hair grey. Alice taught us three the ways of the upright piano that stood as her only companion, Steinway & Sons, & Alice, all together all alone in the two-bedroom home reeking naphthalene and family heritage ending at her squeaking door -- chronic knee pain from all the pedaling and a mouth brimming awful pale pink gums and a lingering voice straight out of a sinking sea, on that first-floor two-bedroom home reeking naphthalene. after every lesson there came her tragic hospitality through a bowl of tasteless bonbons directed at me in faded colors, take one for the sake of common courtesy, mother would remind before i took the stairs two stories down to my twenty-Lebanese Lira for an hour worth of naphthalene-infused piano learning. a decade later and it pains me- this unknowing. was it a sonata or a ballade or a nocturne she bid farewell to this earth with? was she aware she was bidding farewell to this earth with it? i guess i will never know what rhyme she sent into the walls of our shared building block before she turned into the once-upon Alice, ancient woman from the first-floor, two-bedroom home, left dead for two weeks before she was found, a desiccated tuft of bones, once a wife, a daughter, sister, pianist, playing the dirge to her own funeral. The Radical Response they speak of you as though tempests twirl about your infamous waist unshaken, and how you, rose flower, spirit poured as nectar, bask in the foolishness of it all. near you, mountains gasp into the sky for air. you pelt meaning at the skeletal earth, perhaps even push too much of it, into the most trivial of its bones. they laugh at your awe. yet i watch you enmeshed into the beauty that reigns natural. we sit by the breeze and wash its sweetness down with water. in our intestines grow silk and flowers, quantumized dreams turned translations of the content of womb, retied grists of recreation. funny, you say, how we are all seeds of the same star, chrysalises celestial-borne playing pretend, city kids salivating at the mere thought of becoming something of the skies -- when all we are is all there is to be. we go to work dressed in all kinds of earthly minutiae, masses of flesh carried to and fro the rigidities of the urban and the made-up, exciting at the delusions of the Anthropocene, forgetting to dance synchronous, feet bare, moist grass, pupils dilated in trance of it all, moonlight dripping off our eyelashes, visceral shivers electrifying our cores, reviving our return to the elements. Perla Kantarjian is a Lebanese-Armenian writer, journalist, instructor, and hulahooper. Her writings have appeared in various publications including Bookstr, Elephant Journal, Indelible, Panoply, Stripes, The Hellebore, The Armenian Weekly, Walqalam, Rebelle Society, and Annahar Newspaper. Kantarjian also teaches English literature and journalism at the International College, and writes for Bookstr. 2/1/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Haolun Xu Jo Guldi CC A Man Eats His Last Meal Tonight A man eats his last meal tonight. He eats it alone, because his teeth are ugly when he’s afraid. It's his mother’s dish who is far far away a soft bowl of bok-choy with rice. She was always worried it tasted bad. He realizes now, that was never the point. He hugs it close to his chest, and holds the fork like he did as a child. He doesn’t call his parents. They’d cry in a beloved way. That’s not, he believes, what love is for. GIRAFFES EMBRACING ON NOAH'S ARK I do not miss those // translucent palms growing like tricycles outside the apartment from the old country // I do not miss the sound of my mother // whose grace has yet to rectify her becoming, her battle each day But I do miss that proud hawthorn tree that grew to such happiness // and how we shared its shade // You carried gallons of water, and I held the end // as the children // emerged from the shoddy place of which // we'll never give up. I talk carefully at night to a tiger // that is in the shape of a lobster. This is longevity, my greatest companion // and you said time is your best friend. Your pride, your abstinence // I am so proud of these days // and how you won't touch // even me // or heaven // or our mutual and lovely friends because this one home, is one hill // and this is all that really matters // so when the hospitals start panicking // and we fear // the flood alerts in February, I think // Even when I'm angry // and I am // despite all legacies for parity, sleeping on the floor tonight // until dawn The separation between us // is just a lone Beethoven suite you forgot to show me // the week before. Strange And Dangerous Heat I've come to undo my alignments. I think about the pride in this, with my ass stooped over in the air. Some great god can hear me but I can’t hear his answers since there are too many eyes watching the way my forehead touches the floor. Eventually they'll forget. Good, I think it’s a shame to be known as this. Now I just lay down and die. I’m on my back and I hope God doesn’t work horizontally because I’m just a puddle, and it works like this, living through the opposite of rain. I'm fixing how well I stood. Demolition of an altar, I think a strength is a lie, and still, someone enhances my beauty each day and doesn’t give it back. The word cute is the opposite of divinity. God never finds anyone cute so someone needs to tell the others to stop because I’m too busy pulling dandelions from my throat. Every night I count the hours before I turn into a blanket. In the cover of privacy, I grow mushrooms. I stink, I love, but I do not hurt or heal. My body is a nowhere, and someone tells me that no true forest is abandoned as that is its nature. Later I drive off the road because I see a deer dying on the street. When I crawl out of the wreckage, I notice it’s only a cardboard box, soaping wet and growing mushrooms. But this too, I know now, is an animal. Haolun Xu was born in Nanning, China. He immigrated to the United States in 1999 as a child. His writing has appeared in New Ohio Review, Meridian, Bellevue Literary Review and more. He currently reads for Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. Alberto Garcia CC Incantation at the end of NaNoWriMo Write like a mother- fucker. You sucker! Do you think any- one will read this shit? Write like mother, smother that sentence in bother and doubt if ever it squeaks. Write like a moth there, drawn to the flame wait for the shame when you suddenly burn. Write like a Mo show the world how you repeat the same uterine line once more. Write like a mother- wound, spoon around every bloody earth-reeking word Write like mother, wait, let go of the self- hate, make time to create your own rules. Write like a mother- ship, whip out those fine vessels of thought and of rage Write like a mother- land, together band, get stronger and know you’re at home on the page. Hege A. Jakobsen Lepri is a Norwegian-Canadian translator and writer. She had her first story published in English in 2013. Her most recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in This Magazine, Washington Square Review, Grist, The Fiddlehead, Round table Literary Journal, Open: Journal of Arts and Letters; Carve Literary Magazine; The Maynard. You find her at www.hegeajlepri.ca 2/1/2021 0 Comments Poetry by Cynthia Hilts Lenny DiFranza CC
scrappy little fable so what kind of song is a nine year old girl getting drunk? and how would you interpret it for artistic benefit? not that it would be better than the inimitable original just a change, your own take something of another quality to it something outside the box just for a little context say this girl mixes herself a nice big tumbler of orange juice and vodka and then she plays that song at her parents' party she already knows the rhythm of a screwdriver how the vodka doesn't taste bad just burns a little when it's mixed half and half with orange juice and note there is no adult interference no counterpoint on this childish dive into deep waters in all fairness to the blasted adultish possible onlookers historically speaking, she might easily be mixing some grown-up a drink plus, goofy and bright-eyed brilliant little nine year old that she is mixing that sixteen ounces or so in a nice big glass that desert dwellers think of as a reasonable container for water well, she's very tall for her age could easily be twelve which might be construed by a roomful of very dedicated drinkers of the lefty bourgeoisie as a fairly reasonable age to slug down a pint of well-loaded cocktails at an event such as this after all they are all there to drink and make superlative homemade eggnog with five kinds of very grown-up booze in it so hey, let the kid have her gigantic fucking drink and enjoy! but wait, what would the interpretation be, musically speaking? what kind of song is a nine year old girl getting drunk? let's appraise the original version there's all this history behind the composition and performance a woozy piquant mix of ongoing ambient hostility, perfectionism and despair so I guess the tune of our dear little drunk starts out as some heavy Germanic old school militant shit with an overlay of the mildest romanticism then in comes the childish folk melody with occasional jolts of sarcasm and an overriding fear coupled with tittering and occasional solemn formal bows to tradition oh my god, is this a fucking polka?! yes, I'm afraid the original is actually a quintessentially humorless polka, facading as fun while meantime the core and undertow are scraping bottom with unconsciousness and sodden intellect cheerio! let's reinterpret this polka for art but how, how? could bust up all the parts into unrecognizability stick it back together again as a tone row but everybody hates that twelve tone stuff who will ever listen? or we could simplify it to two or three chords cut the melody to a couple of inane cartoonized repetitions approximating the inner workings of the minds of the party-goers and make it a pop hit or heroize it into enduring icons retain the tawdry Teutonic stomping elements add some ornament and a thrice-delayed final cadence as murky as several alcohol laden minds careening gracelessly towards lights-out and have ourselves an opera or can we turn this scrappy little fable into masterful jazz? so the kid and her sad precocity are a poignant show tune and the useless oughta-be caretakers over thirty are Ellingtonian harmonic tension the glorious and victorious screwdriver is the obliging talent of a big band its encompassing very functional poolside perfect plastic tumbler is the hostage status of such an ensemble, hired by some rich jerk arrangements can do a lot, but how do we deal with that initial relentless schmaltz factor? put in a few rests here and there slow it down or speed it up enough so that it can function in the ever gracious and forgiving form of a jazz waltz now that's a lovely setting of the song of a nine year old girl getting drunk Cynthia Hilts is poet, jazz pianist, vocalist, composer and lyricist, bandleader, and teacher. One of her primary values as an artist of any genre, is that blood moves in the body of the art she produces. Her work has been published in ITWOW (In The Words of Womyn) Anthology, Carbon Culture, Inwood Indiana Press, 50 Haikus, and Poetry Quarterly. In addition to her published poetry, she has recorded four CDs of original music and lyrics |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2024
Categories |