Posts filed under ‘Poetry’
Poetry: “War Games” by Rob Schultz
My brother was the cowboy,
I the Indian. Stumping his
Stick horse in crazy zigzags
He dug up dirt. Once I stabbed
The ground with my knife.
Nicked his ear.
He grew industrious, mowed the lawn
In neat squares, uprooted weeds–wild-
Flowers–built a plywood fort
Under a weathered oak whose branches
I climbed to watch, silent, dead-still.
Papa smiled and patted his burr cut
And called him a diligent boy.
I drew a circle around myself,
Let hair grow down my neck,
And worshiped round wet stones.
Navigating woods by smell of fog,
Watching street lights on the river,
Testing my breath on walks that winter,
I was sure the dead would return.
Shadow that ran across our lawn
And lost itself in the sunset:
I knew it was my mother.
“Just the light,” said my brother.
Drawing his cap gun, he aimed
Straight for the heart.
Mother Earth.
Poetry: “Casting” by Noel Sloboda
From between toppled logs, spider legs and
mouse droppings spill, as wood downed once
again falls like fate, and I prepare to
rebuild. Scanning the wreckage, I search
for a catch to release the base row
committed to ripening in place.
The rotten logs must be wrestled loose,
carted to the deep woods to be forgotten—
I know from years past, they won’t go
without a fight with the living, clinging
to muddy March ground, as if to suggest
the recently dead dream of roots.
Poetry: “Incarnation” by Anthony Opal
A by himself crow
is picking at the bark
on a log
on top of a rain wet
woodpile,
black feathers glinting
white,
an allover misting
of december rain
on christmas lights—
this incarnation
as viewed from my office window—
a father-forsaken shadow
taking flight
among us, lonely moving.
Poetry: “Nothing New” by M.R. Harris
Brave new world when this mustachioed,
tousle-haired old geezer
met this brash young rich kid with the
slicked spikes and soul patch,
mister ennuied-with-the-world
begat the devil-may-care millionaire,
and Paige typesetters melted
into West Egg moonshine.
He put down the three martinis
and clamped on a New England hard-hat,
then went out frothing foam,
having drowned a mass
of brave and witless men
in a sea of electrified fencing.
Meanwhile the kid woke up
one morning at age forty
and found he’d misplaced his wife
and his entire digestive system,
down the tubes like so
many lost countries.
Poetry: “Troublesome Phenomena about the Room” by Andrew S. Chen
It starts with the changing of a light bulb.
Continues with the putting of jackets
on hangers, the closing of a closet door.
The Teflon flakes off in the pan,
saturates the day with carcinogens.
Scrub it, rinse it, dump it down the drain.
Cultivate that blackened bottom taste.
How well the household chores agree
with a dark night, the spindling fix of a seam.
The sad thing about private lives
is they go unsung to the grave,
as funeral attendees steal toasted paninis
and banana bread. What will become
of the photographs that live on?
Shoebox. Nightstand. Blaze of glory.
Every letter you write from now on
will bear the stamp of this exercise.
Think of how it will be carried as wind
carries a sailboat, how you ought
to read it backward, word by word.
Poetry Reading: “Cash for Clunkers” by Philip Fried
As a preview of our upcoming Spring Issue, we are happy to share with you a recording of one of the featured poems: “Cash for Clunkers” by Philip Fried.
Please press the link below to hear our Fiction Editor, Levi Foster, read this poem
(Note that the recording is somewhat quiet, so you may have to raise the volume on your computer.)
Poetry: “sudden prayer for the squirrel on the powerline” by B.J. Best
sizzling acrobat, you try the wire
from pine to pine. potential flashforward,
your claws cut like scimitars across the line
yet you know nothing of capacitors, of relays
and dynamos, or how we use dinosaurs’ bones
to make our debauched suns glow.
but you know about flux and resistance:
the lean of a limb, the arc of a leap,
the force to pry an acorn from its cap.
I want to know what it’s like to walk
along the electric-white finger of god;
I want to suck the creosote from the pole
that sprung like a railroad tie at the edge
of the yard, an eiffel tower of light,
the hum that stifles all cries.
squirrel, I like how you close all the circuits,
tying the juice into irreconcilable knots of twine,
as easily as I can call god a liar,
as easily as I drink this glass of wine.
Poetry: “Ablutions,” by Josiah Bancroft
I come to
the mirror,
a smug,
run animal,
extracting
my eyes, teeth,
rub the dent
of rings
into the sink.
I put a comb
to my head
because I’m
flirting again,
and catching
blown kisses
in my beard.
Poetry: “KJ’s Feet”, by Craig Cotter
Not a callous.
Each nail clear.
Cuticles naturally, symmetrically edged.
Scent gets me hard.
Size 12.
Twenty-four.
Every other surface
(dark black hair)
perfect. Perfect scent.
You drink steadily
Absolut Cape Cod
That monstrosity, what’s it called, she said.
The Pomapdour Center?
Yeah that’s it.
Great Rivers cardboard sculpture.
KJ your 6-foot
140 pound twink body
Nothing better in my life.
Only things equal.
The Nobel Prize in Literature
for lifetime achievement
could only equal your body
and sweet nature.
Sitting on the edge of my bed
your feet in white socks and black and white
tennis shoes
telling me about your boys, girls,
computer-animation free-lance.
*
[Take a good long pause here.
Take a half-hour walk or run
or swim—break—
then get back to this poem.
Seriously if you don’t do one
you’ll miss the experience.]
*
Every night I don’t look for you
but about five nights a week.
Looked through Zurich and Pattaya.
Everything disappears!
Not a hair on your chest
or flat stomach.
Poetry: “Things Coyote Would Like,” by Davy Knittle
a respectable turkey sandwich
vanilla frosting
cinnamon
jawlines
sheep shorn in quicksand
pinewood sheds
duck feathers
leg flesh
telephone calls from the desert
garbage
cactus pear ice cream
calluses on the pads of your hands
dance about weather systems
flat feet
sand around the rim of a water glass
the ecology of salamanders
lemongrass tea
where the moon goes
pronounced or burgundy stratus clouds
banana yogurt
deltoid muscles
fishing wire at your ankles
sleep or its undoing
grids for hanging lights in a theater
utility maps
lion noises
cheap straw hats
powdered jelly donuts
Eliza’s serious rain face
mint leaves
turpentine
a forearm telescope
