10/4/2022 Poetry By Robert Frede Kenter kooikkari CC
Approximating the Mathematics of Loss (Physics of the physically urgent). Dwelling on the obsession The light in your eyes A Vernacular Two lost ravens in a night wheel A language That transcends The broken love The vessel cupping light, erasing time, in the black smudge we make across the wooden floors The search Beside you Honouring a tenderness That hooks us into the infinite Squall. Speculative, that this Is Love. Shared oblivion Masochistic rapture Gestural soul -- a notion Of salvation. There is no God But, there is this. Wings flapping the panic The moan of ecstatic union Us in snow / us in moonlit skin. 2. Lost In the cold tidy world Lost in eyes Lost in skin Lost in the open Eviscerated soul. Robert Frede Kenter is a widely published writer, editor & visual artist, Pushcart nominee, a grant recipient (Ontario & Toronto Arts Councils) and EIC/Publisher of Ice Floe Press www.icefloepress.net. Books/anthologies incl. The Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022); EDEN, a Hybrid (2021), avail: www.rareswanpress.com (2021), & Before I Turn into Gold, FeversOftheMind (2021). Recent journals incl: CutbowQ, Streetcake Magazine, Feral, WatchYrHead, Anthropocene, Scissors & Spackle, Cough, BurningHouse, Anti-heroin chic. Robert has lived/worked in Toronto, NYC, San Francisco, London, UK., etc. Living with ME/Fibro, Robert is sometimes sidelined, but never out of the game. Twitter: @frede_kenter, @icefloeP. 10/4/2022 Poetry By Candice Kelsey kooikkari CC
The Most Dangerous Game for Liza I never taught that short story by Richard Connell, but it pops up often when I tutor. Mostly, I’ve been able to keep the tale at arm’s length. Until today. The news comes through they found that jogger—that Memphis school teacher’s body in an abandoned lot near her killer’s apartment. I quit teaching & work remotely now. Being home for the last few months has bred an unhealthy shut-in mentality—I don’t care to ever leave the house again. I hear buckshot some mornings during duck & deer season. It’s a tradition for most fathers & sons here in southeastern Georgia to enjoy the outdoors by stalking, killing, and dismembering unsuspecting wildlife. The land behind our back fence is protected. It’s a no-hunting zone, you might say. I’ve never been killed & I don’t jog, but odds are I’ve been stalked, followed, whatever with ill intent. I tell my husband the news about the Fletcher woman. He announces he’ll make the drive to Appling to pick up our 14 year-old daughter from soccer practice tonight. No need for you to be driving dark, country roads. No need for any of it, I think as I thank him. Traditions are funny things. They can become rituals, like running early in the morning or refusing to leave the house or even obsessively checking the locks on the doors before going to bed, where you sleep with a knife under your pillow just in case. Traditions can be stories we learn, fictions even, like that piece about the crazy island where men are hunted for sport. Stupid author got it all wrong. CANDICE KELSEY [she/her] is a poet, educator, and activist currently living in Augusta, Georgia. She serves as a creative writing mentor with PEN America's Prison & Justice Writing Program; her work appears in Grub Street, Poet Lore, Lumiere Review, Hawai'i Pacific Review, and Slant among other journals. Recently, Candice was chosen as a finalist in Iowa Review's Poetry Contest and Cutthroat's Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Her third book titled A Poet just released with Alien Buddha Press. Find her @candicekelsey1 and www.candicemkelseypoet.com. 10/4/2022 Poetry By Caitlin Conlon antony_mayfield CC
FERMENTATION At Junior’s Bar & Grill I flirt with my father’s murderer, not for the first or last time. The aftertaste of a killer is intoxicating– less than half an hour in the dark and I’m his until I come up with a reason to stop asking for more. I run my thumb gently along his lip and bring it to my own as strangers side-step around us. Despite how it may look to the bartender I’m taking it slow, swirling the evening around, breathing in its body. By midnight I abandon my family history. I slide my tongue down his homicidal neck, bringing every drop of him into me like I’m on the brink of dehydration, lost in the desert of my own tipsy grief. Cold hand over wet mouth, we sway to the jukebox that accepts credit cards but no cash. We oxidize, grow stale, keep up the charade until it’s over and when it’s over, it’s really over. Like a headache, his presence kneads at my skin, changes my chemistry even as I pull away. & when I do, I’m still left with the residual sugar of our affair, settled on the bottom of a glass that I push between my palms. I attempt to read its pattern as though it can predict the future. Death by choking? Death by genetics? How will I know when it’s over? JEFF I don’t have sympathy for THE FATHER but I do have sympathy for Jeffrey, who eventually became THE FATHER. Freckles lined his arms like hundreds of black holes, leading into the darkest dark. Jeffrey was water-logged but couldn’t swim, metaphorically. THE FATHER, on the other hand, would clear seaweed away from the beach in front of his parent’s house every summer. THE FATHER never complained about hard work. But I don’t want to talk about THE FATHER. Tonight, I’m thinking of Jeff. Jeff was colorblind and drove an awful green car for a decade, not realizing it hurt to look at. Jeff’s adolescence revolved around wanting to be loved, and here I go again. Fixating on the way we wanted the same things, how we happily continued the cycle. 25 years have taught me how to compartmentalize. How to bury the keys when I can’t bear to think anymore and I can’t bear it so I just live through it instead. He was Jeffrey then Jeff then THE FATHER and briefly he became Jeff again, alone, in the seconds after he stopped breathing. Jeff is what they called him on the phone. He died himself. He was not THE FATHER. He was a man that chased desire, that could not give me a future because it was so similar to his own reflection. He was a man that knew I hated seaweed against my bare legs. Who died without red, or green. He was a man. He was my father. He was Jeff, and then, he was everything, 2017, AS I REMEMBER IT My father hasn’t been seen in weeks. Every few days or so, like a good daughter, I hang a bag of groceries on his doorknob. Bread. Peanut Butter. Chicken noodle soup. The bags disappear into a black hole and I report my findings. Nobody wants to say that my father has started drinking again, least of all me who suspects he never stopped. Three weeks ago the only former alcoholic I know told me he wasn’t ready for a sober, romantic relationship. I call my father and he doesn’t answer. I text my ex and ask for advice and he does answer. Have you ever held a man that just lost yet another person to a drink? I have been the holder and the held. Tonight, I am the person that remembers. My father unlocks the door and his fridge is full of rot. He is living on a bloodstained couch. My father does not believe himself to be an alcoholic. My ex believes in something bigger than me and I hate him for it. My ex tells me over the sound of Rick & Morty that he’s scared of step eight and I am nineteen so I console him in the wrong way. I can’t leave anything alone. My father tells me that he’s fine, as he falls asleep in the middle of our conversation. I leave and cry into the steering wheel, not because my father is dying but because the only person that could possibly understand me is somewhere else, forgetting more and more of my body with every second. Like a good daughter, I remember everything. I text my ex. He doesn’t answer. Caitlin Conlon is a poet and avid reader from Upstate New York. She has a BA in English and a Creative Writing Certificate from the University At Buffalo and, while there, was chosen for the Friends of the University Libraries Undergraduate Poetry Prize, and the Arthur Axlerod Memorial Prize for Poetry. She has previously been published with Up The Staircase Quarterly and Rust + Moth, among others. Her debut poetry collection, The Surrender Theory, was released in 2022 with Central Avenue Publishing. You can find her online almost anywhere @cgcpoems. 10/4/2022 Poetry By Faith King Andrew Seaman CC
Musings on The Full Moon and Sunday Mass Sleeping with rosary beads at my bedside and a tarot deck under my pillow My mother used to say you have two hands to hold two truths Your anger can coexist with understanding And the God I grew up with can exist alongside the energy I feel during a new moon. The crystals I carry in my pocket click against each other as I cross myself after getting off the highway. The Earth is as much my mother as my mother is when I put my bare feet against her soft soil and maybe Jesus Christ is just an expression. There is nothing else to say yet. My altar is sometimes the ocean, sometimes my bedroom floor, sometimes the marble of my childhood. It’s cold sturdiness under my Mary Jane clad feet as I walked to receive the gifts. And my God weren’t they gifts? Weren’t they someone saying “I love you so much?” Isn’t that all we’re ever really looking for? Faith King is a college student who has been writing short stories since she was very small. Her love of poetry began with watching the works of Olivia Gatwood and Brenna Twohy and she began writing when she was in highschool and continues to do so today. In addition to poems she is a playwright and songwriter. In her poetry she enjoys exploring the topics of love, religion, growing up, and the many many feelings she has in her everyday life. 10/4/2022 Poetry By Nancy Byrne Iannucci kooikkari CC
Dry Well -at William Cullen Bryant’s house, Cedarmere. I’m mad at the sun & the blue sky for making my well run dry But the bumblebee is still fat & clumsy And people still ask me if William’s home, I tell them he’s rarely here. I gave up my usual porch seat to an old man, and walked down like a stream to the bay. Everything shifts & changes- constant shouldn’t exist as a word. A butterfly flew into my face as a case in point. She’ll be dead in a month. the birds will still sing as they usually do, but eventually they, too, will be different birds, the next generation birds, taught the same songs over worms. A lone morning glory looks up at me from a bushy marsh, not afraid to bloom alone. I follow the path next to her, a path I never knew existed two swans were resting together. the male hissed and honked and shook his head at me, everything I saw from that moment on lined the bay in pairs: two trees, two men on a bench, two garbage bins, Two women at a picnic table– Eight two line couplets. They’re enjoying their rhymes while they can until they become that lone morning glory mad at the sun & the blue sky for making the well run dry. Taking Back Eden I’m not going to mow the grass. I’m going to water the weeds. I’m not going to wear tight jeans. I’m going to strip and breathe. I’m going to run to the woods. I’m going to release Eve. I’m going to take back Eden. I’m going to dismantle the wooden gate. I’m going to let in the beasts. We’re going to eat everything. We’re going to share the apples. We’re going to sing with snakes. We’re going to swing from trees We’re going to sleep with ease. We’re not going to succumb- control will never come. This is What I Ask My Students Who Wear Thrasher Hoodies to My Class: Do you know what a boneless No comply swellbow nose bump deathbox drop in big spin wallie bump-to-bar kingpin flat spot switch flip feeble casper front blunt primo hill bomb are? No? I thought so, wearing Thrasher hoodies only for the flames. Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a widely published poet from Long Island, New York who currently lives in Troy, NY. Defenestration, Hobo Camp Review, Bending Genres, The Mantle, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Bluebird Word, Glass: a Poetry Journal are some of the places you will find her. She is the author of two chapbooks, Temptation of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), and Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021); she is also a teacher, and woodland roamer. Visit her at www.nancybyrneiannucci.com Instagram: @nancybyrneiannucci 10/4/2022 Poetry By Victoria Doose Ordem dos Contabilistas Ce CC
Intrusive Thoughts on a Long Drive to the Office The cross-border journey to Maryland is unusually cold for April, and water flicks off the steady windshield wipers. It’s really easy to just not press the brakes. An 18-wheeler squeals down the interstate, a sound like dogs being dragged, rabbits in talons, unexpected heartbreak. Remember the story you read last night about a woman whose engine block tore through her abdomen? When I get to the office, I am understanding about my layoff and nod politely when the CEO says he’s sorry for this situation. You’re only about a foot from smashing the end of that guardrail. I hand over my laptop and badge and shake his hand—he is the only person here—and let 10 years die quietly on my way out the door. Do you think those yellow barrels of sand by the exit really work? The drive back into Virginia is stalled by rubberneckers staring at a convoy hauling an oversized load, all pulled over to the shoulder. It’s easy enough to just run off the road. Victoria Doose was born and raised in the watery climes of Charleston, South Carolina, and is now based in the Washington, DC, area. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English and art history from Elon University. An editor by day and a poet by night, she is immersed in the artistry and technical craft of writing at all times. Her work has been published in Colonnades and is forthcoming in The Soap Box Press’ anthology Scream it at the Back Wall. 10/4/2022 Poetry By Jen Stein Paul Padshewscky CC
Maybe there are things more tangible than water Moonlight ripples on the water, the sky’s echo framed on the lake. The picture oscillates, tangible ripples with their variable harmonics. I could grab that sky, shove it in my mouth, moon on my tongue tip, stars slipping down, splashing over my neck, my arms, immerse myself full until I breathe clouds to blot the sky, all goosebumps. I want all the water. What if desire isn’t hunger but an echo? What if wanting brings the ending? The harmonics aren’t set here, the tone ebbs and swells. Maybe tomorrow the sky is clear, its bright arc caught in anything that holds reflection – mirror, lake, eyes. Maybe tomorrow, the sky cracks open. Either way, I want every word tangled, taut, twisted – not the sky but our skin, not the ethereal inconstant fucking moonlight but the smell of your neck. I want to know you picture me straddling you, tasting your tongue. If desire echoes, let the sound chase your hand to my thigh, my mouth to your stomach. We are mostly water, painted by the moon. Wanting to swallow everything. Jen Stein is a writer, artist, editor, and educator in Fairfax, Virginia. Her art and writing are informed by her experiences with advocacy and activism surrounding the politics of the body, disability, and mental health. She has published and upcoming work with Porkbelly Press, Whale Road Review, Menacing Hedge, Nonbinary Review, and Stirring, and has been assistant editor at Rogue Agent for seven years. You can find her on Instagram @jensteinpoetry, and on Twitter @dexlira. 10/4/2022 Poetry By M.K. Greer Andrew Seaman CC
The Lucky Ones In the beginning, my father’s body was a jungle gym. A back to climb, shoulders to grab, a neck to cling to. His arms were branches and I was a leaf, swinging in the breeze. Before the beginning, my father lived through war. I’d trace my fingers across the edge of the blotchy white scar that looked like splattered paint. And when I asked about the war, he’d tell me about the beautiful bugs. Centipedes a foot long and beetles the size of his hand. Damp nights in the jungle when little legs crawled over him as if his body was no more than a fallen log. One night he got drunk, and told me about the soldier who died in his arms. The soldier’s last words were my father’s last name. There are no first names in war. One night I got drunk, and tried to kill myself. My father didn’t say much in the hospital room, just sat by my side and watched me the way an oak tree watches a squirrel burying acorns for the winter. Will this one be eaten – or grow into a tree? In the end, I lived long enough to sit by my father’s side and watch him in a different room, in a different hospital, while the war still clung to his flesh like napalm, an invisible poison seeping into pores – a fungus rotting limbs one by one. War takes its time to kill the lucky ones. On the anniversary of my father’s death, I had a dream the sun was shining. My hair was short and blond, and I was happy. I met my father’s ghost in a field of green and he opened his hand to reveal the Sternocera aequisignata. It rested in his palm like a sacred jewel – holding all the light of the universe in the fragile shell of its being. I watched it crawl up my father’s arm, until it settled on the splattered paint scar. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? M.K. Greer lives in Maryland with her family. Recent work has appeared in Rust + Moth, Reservoir Road Literary Review, Whale Road Review, and Kissing Dynamite. You can find her on Twitter: @MKGreerPoetry. 10/4/2022 Poetry By Susan Vespoli Andrew Seaman CC
Letter to My Son’s Too Short Life Dear broken lifeline in a handprint pressed into the clay when you were six. Dear picky eater, apple juice in a sippy cup. Teddy bear tag worn thin by fingers fondling the silk. Dear early talker, messy room with a TV flickering in the corner so you could sleep. Dear crying while fishing with your dad, thinking you were going to keep the trout as a pet, flat dead glassy-eyed corpse pulled from the lake. Dear brilliant square peg in a round hole, rescuer of a pigeon you named Parchesi, low slung jeans and boxer shorts, fear of driving, lost books and papers crumpled at the bottom of your backpack. Dear culinary school, clove of garlic baked in a potato, vanilla frosted triple-layer cake topped with strawberries cut into rosebuds. Dear red eyes and munchies. Backpain and an oxy prescription. Finding your own brand of recovery on the street. Gifting water bottles, prayers. Bible in a Ziplock. Dear street minister, methadone clinic, policeman’s gun. Dear short life. Dear grief. Flickering sequin at the end of a cigarette, tip of a joint. Ignited into fire when held in your lips, drawn into your lungs with your breath, released. Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ, where she believes in the power of poetry to heal. Her work has been published in spots such as Anti-Heroin Chic, Rattle, and New Verse News. She is the author of two books, one of them, Blame It on the Serpent, is about addiction in her family, and all profits are donated to 12-Step Groups. 10/4/2022 Poetry By Angel Rosen Trixi Skywalker CC
Thunderbird 93 I want to be Poet Laureate of someone’s bed, peeling staples out of my knees in the meantime. You’ll come to a knot soon, untie my neck and my head will come undone. My head will roll around, make amends, tell your fortune, then land in a strike, ten pins down and all my fingers, too. I want to be sprawled out, sheet fiend, making acquaintance time and time again with a heavy sleep that coats me like glue, and a serious voltage that is several simultaneous alarms screaming dawn, dawn, dawn. Another arrival. I see that you’ve come to check in, I haven’t left the bed, one foot in front of the other. I have thinned myself out enough to be your tightrope. Balancing act, getting to know me. The hallway to me is several New York blocks. What a journey, wrap it up. Your entrance starts another affair. Turn the corner, trip the fuse, what a stunner, kingpin in the mattress. At The Dictionary Inn, no certain suite, making a business out of the catalog of the bastards at check-in. There is a switch in my head shaped like a rabbit’s foot. It reads good luck, bitch. It tends to lead to unwanted announcements. Please stand by. Hello, operator? Are you at the other end of my vanishing, saying bon voyage and whatnot? If you are selling me a box of truth, I will take it only if it is bite-sized. I will lie still while you assign my dosage. I put a glass eye in my mouth and squish it like a grape. Swallow its sharpness, spit the wine. You collect it in chalice, name it Thunderbird 93. This transaction sews me shut. Nothing comes out of me ever again. Angel Rosen (she/her) is a poet whose writing focuses on mental illness, womanhood, queerness and absurdity. She has two full-length poetry collections, Aurelia and Blake and has work forthcoming with Olney, Spillover Mag and Madwoman Collective. Angel spends her time reading, writing, hobby surfing and eating ice cream. |
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