Jason E. Hodges- A Poem

Technicolor Eyes

Out on the sidewalks
The sidewalks of this dirt covered town
I found myself fortunate
To find who the good book calls Christ
At least this is who her mind said she was at that moment
And her pills when she took them were as sweet as sugar-stick-candy
Their bright colors made them slide down with ease
They covered her world in bright Technicolor
Tunnel vision she said would allow me to see her
In the lower atmosphere
For now she was an astronaut
She was floating with her little box-doll and could see St. Frances
Along with St. Mary who was standing beside her
I smiled so kindly as she began to explain
I told you I’m on a different atmosphere
I feel fine in this place
Where my hair looks like Rose-Colored-Platinum
You can laugh and play with the stars up here
I tell you, I can sit in the curve of the moon
If you had tunnel vision you could see me up here
You have to have Technicolor Eyes
But you have to watch out for the devil
He’ll shoot you in the back
He did that to me
Then he stole my silver dollar
But now I’m okay because I am Moses
I’m not hungry at all
I’m in a different atmosphere with Technicolor Eyes

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal- 3 Poems

THE SHADOWS KNOW MY NAME

The shadows know my name.

I go by bird brain. I am not a bird,

but the shadows don't care.

When it's hot outside I always

find some shade by a tree or

a building. There the shadows

call my name in a soft low tone.

Sometimes it's the wind that talks.

I can't tell the two apart. I do not

listen to what the little birds say.

They gossip too much.

TREMULOUS SHADOWS

You cover me

with oblivion.

My heart is bare,

cold like the winter.

I feel nothing.

Life is precarious.

You cover me

with oblivion.

I’m the ashes

brought to be buried.

I feel transparent

like life’s silences.

Twilight shadows

fill my travels.  You

cover me with

oblivion.

At night I contemplate

love’s nostalgia,

love’s oblivion.

Tremulous shadows

inhabit my dreams.

RED SUITCASE

I am only here to clear up a warrant

and then I am gone.

Do not mix me up with some crazed

lunatic, because

I am sane. I need to get my red suitcase.

My paperwork is

in it. My record contract is there.

I don’t want the cops

to continue to get away with their story

about me being

naked on the beach. That’s just bull.

I would say shit, but

I don’t talk like that unless I am mad.

You would not like to

see me get mad. I will do terrible things

to this place if I

do. I’m like The Incredible Hulk, but

I won’t get green or

big. I’ll keep my shirt

on. But don’t test me because I’m a hard

woman to handle.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

PTSD

In the waiting room, I squeeze 

this old rosary a nun gave me 

the day I got back from Iraq.

I was still in a daze on a gurney

and I still had sand in my hair.

Some of it remains, no matter 

how many showers I take. 

Sand from Iraq lingers, I'm told,

until you go bald, and then

you are able to concentrate

on other things.

What might they be, I wonder.

But today, in this waiting room,

I squeeze the rosary tighter  

when I hear, louder than 

the gunshots crackling in my dreams, 

the real screams of that little boy 

right over there, the one who's 

rapped his elbow off the radiator.

Lord, listen to him scream! 

Each week he comes with his mother 

for her follow-up appointment. 

He sounds like the jet 

that takes me back at night

to that little village in Iraq

where the sand puffs up  

in mushroom clouds

above the bullets

as the children scream 

in their hovels louder 

than that little boy  

screaming over there.

Maybe everyone 

in this waiting room

listening to him scream  

can come with me now 

to that village in Iraq.

Sitting here, I know 

that boy's pain so well 

that in my fist 

this rosary no longer

knows my prayers. 

--------------------------------------------------

Donal Mahoney has had poems published in Dead Snakes and other publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Sarah E. White- A Poem

Through the Forest

I was walking with you though the forest
You holding my hand in the most gentle way
But not just holding it
Caressing it, loving it as we walked
Your touch fills me with such sensation
A tingle that starts so small
Radiates from my hand that you hold so genuinely
It flows into my chest and pounds away at my heart
Pulsing, pumping, flowing
I breathe, try to breathe it in
The trees sway softly in the breeze as we walk
Soft morning light sparkles through the light green hue of the maple leaves
Sparkling all around us in this dazzling moment
Time standing as still as my eyes stare into yours
I am swept away by you and the way you hold my hand
It’s like you have held it for a lifetime
A lifetime that we have yet to live
The way my heart pounds at the thought of simply walking with you once again
Thinking about the next walk, next time
The joy of a stolen moment
This is our time
This forest is our place, the sanctuary where we hide
Where we are alone
Alone together
You and I and this forest
The sunlight and the trees
Hand holding and hearts pounding in the safety of this moment

Jason E. Hodges- A Poem

Elephants

At times honesty a bitch
It seems now
There’s no comfortable room in my home
For there are elephants of unspeakable pain lurking in most
Sitting waiting
Waiting to pop into my mind
Waiting to crush me with all of their power
Push me down to the floor
So I walk
Quietly I walk past them
Tiptoeing while carrying this heavy burden
Ever so quietly I walk
Through the rooms that hold teardrops of sadness and uncontrollable shaking
For I have to keep walking through this place of my living
I have no where to go
Their dark eyes fall upon me
Their smiles pull softly as they wait for the discussion to begin
Their long gray trunks point at me
Gently, they motion to me
But I keep walking
I try not to see them
I’m thinking of how not to think at all
So I can make it into the few rooms that are left
That have no elephants
With memories of mind changing images
Rooms of safety where I can retreat
To my writing
To my Art
To anything that keeps these creatures at bay
If only for a moment
If only for a night

Jeffrey Park- A Poem

PATTERNS

Watching him shuffle along the aisle
you think perhaps he sees things
that I never would see: hidden patterns,
designs created by the cigarette butts

and chewing gum wrappers
all this – unless – unless he’s just
a sly fox playing us all for fools
his bowed posture nothing more than a nod

to our expectations. Easier to just go along
with his little game. But if you ever
found a private moment between stations
you might have a quiet word,

not overplaying it, keeping in mind that less
is always so much more –
I share in your secret, friend. I won’t
be the one who spills your clever beans.


Bio:
Jeffrey Park currently lives in Munich, Germany, where he works at a private secondary school and teaches business English to adults. His latest poems have appeared in Subliminal Interiors, Mobius, Punk Soul Poet, The Corner Club Press, FortyOunceBachelors and elsewhere.

Amit Parmessur- Two Poems

You Are No Cartoon Gal

Your hair is so curled in innocence

that it has fallen all over your right eye.

Or, is it an intended half

Peek-a-boo of a new, lively girlie?

I can see the milky moon in your face;

I can see your virtuous visage in the moon.

There is a plethora of magical black rivulets

going & tangoing all along your beautiful hair,

without your consent. There’s a wild

reverie in your veiled eye too but

I know you’ve learnt life’s not a comic cartoon.

On your lovely, naïve cheeks the wounds

of unfair battles and misfortune are still visible,

but now your melodic smile will flourish,

furtively, making you a most merry woman.

Always be as childish and multi-colored

as your Sammy & Molly tee-shirt, poetic gal.

Behind you it is blue paradise, behold,

filled with long episodes of freedom.

Whatever episode you choose you’ll

taste your dreams, and your scars will fade.

Your tight lips wrapped in pale pink wax

are singing so many hymns nowadays— lemme

hear you a bit tonight, before you start dreaming,

charming flower.

Remember, many men would love to be

your lucky wristwatch, without your consent…

Snake Hunting

As if he’d thrown his toned body

into the lush grass,

like a lame stone flying.

To see those shining muscles—

what if he were to coil around our ankles!

I had to ask myself why

he should dangle on

that mossy rock like that. He

was intimidating.

See, see if you understand the

watercolor stripes he’s

proudly sporting.

The burn in his throat,

I see nothing more mighty.

You care nothing for

his youthful eyes that plead

for a life smooth as the pieces

of Kraft Cheese left in our battered bags?

African friends, abandon this snake.

I am not a seasoned hunter—

let’s chase something else.

I’m just a few meters from him—

Wake up, now, big snake.

I’m holding the trembling stick,

running like a mad crab

towards him.

As if he would plunge into

the sound of the dull forest now!

There I go.

There he slithers away.

We followed.

Born in 1983 Amit Parmessur is one of the editors of poetry magazine The Rainbow Rose. Since 2010, his poems have appeared in around 100 literary magazines, such as: Ann Arbor Review, The Camel Saloon, Calliope Nerve, Damazine, Zouch Magazine and many others. He is nominated for the Pushcart Prize and lives in Quatre-Bornes, Mauritius.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Whinny and Spit

When a man’s young,

this work is hard

but it pays well

and he can feed

the wife and kids.

In the morning

he throws crates off trucks,

and after lunch

throws crates again

till five or six o’clock.

But as he grows older,

and some say

ready to retire,

he has to stop

in the late afternoon,

mount his throne of skids,

let his legs drip over the side,

toss his head, inhale,

whinny and spit.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Donal Mahoney's father came to America from Ireland just before the Great Depression. A legal immigrant, he had jobs like the one described in the poem. That is why, many decades later, it is difficult for Mahoney to worry about whether an immigrant is legal or not when he sees one working his buttocks off in the noonday sun.  

Jason E. Hodges- A Poem

The Hyena

In this world, this world of ours
The Hyena stands with a sharpened grin
Gnashes his teeth, and digs in his claws
All while preaching his words and making his profit
Mother Mary, do they read your son’s words at all?
Or do they speak to the flocks with prewritten text of what better words might be? Promising plenty the Hyena will do and using all that he can
Then dropping from his followers heavy and full
Like a tick stretched to the limit by his consumption
How strange it all is to me
For I’m not one of these beasts, nor do I follow their way
So I naturally struggle when I encounter their masses
Constantly choking on all that they feed me
What they show me
For a Paper Rose looks like the best smelling flower
Perception is seeing what they want you to see
Like stained-glass telling its story with all of its bright and wonderful colors
Yet dull when the sun doesn’t shine its way
And the cast shadows of candles wash over beloved Mother Mary
But still we pray to her
Beg of her
Hoping she will reach out and touch us
Come to life in some miraculous way
Hold us
Reassure us
Make our world feel better than what our eyes see day after day
In this world
This world of ours
Where the hyena gnashes his teeth and the weak follow his way

Sarah Gamutan- A Poem

Living With Avengers

 

Dilated capillaries were looking for you.

They wanted home deep inside your green

varicose veins. They crawled on such thin

bones, gargled blood and chewed marrows.

They gnawed like rats, spun around your

 

knees and gave so much pain each time your

head was  higher in altitude. The mind and

heart debated as to “who should kill the rust in

you”. The way you tossed and turned like an
impish slug was hideous. But you were that

 

careless. That’s why they wanted to kill you -

Like another tell- tale heart. That’s why they

resided in your system, said you were special

but only crushed your  bones slowly but surely.

That  time, vengeance was hurtful and coercible.


Bio:
Sarah Gamutan's poems and stories are forthcoming in Poetry Space and Microstory a Week. She lives in Philippines where she works as a Customer Support Associate by night and a poet at heart by day.

Lee Stern- Three Poems

A SPACE IN THE MISSING RAIN

Maybe there’s a space in the missing rain that I don’t know about.
And maybe you tried to tell me but I didn’t pay any attention.
Maybe there’re some directions I should have known about.
And if I had listened carefully to what you said,
I would have known what was going on.
But it’s the space in the missing rain
that compels me to tell you that I don’t know anything about the clouds.
If I knew anything about the clouds
I would stand on my feet and shout it out clearly.
I would write a new chapter about even the smallest ones
so there would be no misunderstanding.
And I would do all of that without even requesting payment.
Without standing in a place of benign memories.
Without asking why winter’s voices were lost
when the sounds of the faces were wet.




 BREATHING

Maybe it was the strange way of breathing
that brought me to this place.
I was used to breathing with my mouth and my nose.
But these people used their words to inhale the air.
And it was that reason alone
that caused me to be attracted to them.
And sometimes the biggest words brought in the least amount of air.
In other words, just the opposite of what you might have thought.
It was like a whole language that was dedicated to their lungs.
And in between checking out other possibilities, that was what I thought.
And I also thought that the smallest words
held onto the air for the longest time.
And I didn’t want to become bedridden so I had to agree.
I had to measure the words I inhaled.
And the simple cloth upon which I recorded the edge of their days.




 I CAN REMEMBER

I can remember most of the things you told me.
I can remember the playful things and the serious things.
When you told me that an oak tree
had to be planted somewhere,
I went out of my way to remember that.
When you told me that everybody had to ring a bell,
and not mistake it for anything else,
it was the same thing and the same reaction.
And when you told me that you were going to love me until the end of tomorrow,
I had no choice but to keep those words in front of me like little parachutes.
Dangling in the weather.
Colliding with hopes wearing thin.

Sarah E. White- A Poem

The Creek

My life has come full circle

I have made it finally back

To my favorite place in the world

This place where my childhood was lived

Paths of adventure and intrigue

Where I romped and ran

Within the cool clay walls of the earth

This place was home

The cool water rippling through the hillside

Continually carving its path

The earthen smell of safety

Fills me with such life even now

Such security

A place where I felt most free

To be one with the earth, one with myself

Truly seeing the many layers

Finally eye level with the world

As time stands still

I gaze at the landscape from the creek bottom

I feel the energy around me

The trickle of water flowing beneath me

Beside me

Flowing through me

Washing over the bare bones of my soul

The crunch of rocks shifting under my feet

I trudge onward

My life flows forward

But my childhood is encapsulated here

In memory

In the creek

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

 

Griggs' Bar and Grill

In two more hours I'll have to shower,

shave and coffee-prop my lids

and otherwise prepare for day. It's 4 a.m.

and now the barkeep, Griggs,

is rushing me, the first 

to come, the last to leave, 

the lad who just an hour before

was coaxed to quaff one more.

At work I'll cummerbund a smile,

hold my head and sit all day,

play another endless game

of solitaire or tic-tac-toe. 

Griggs' apron's off. The neon's out

and now he'll set the locks in back.

The spittle, butts and half-slain beers

he'll leave for Willie who'll soon be here

to dance his broom between

the tables and the scattered chairs

as smoothly as Kelly or Astaire.

At 6 a.m., he'll climb the ladder 

near the door and aim his broom

through the transom toward the sky.

Each morning Willie puts another 

bullet through the eye of sunrise.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Donal Mahoney quit drinking many years ago as a preface to marriage. Today he doesn't miss the liquor, but he does miss the people he would see late at night while sitting at the end of the bar. At times, even when he was sober, the later it got, the more the whole scene seemed like a ballet, despite the raucous music from the juke box.

Sarah Gamutan- A Poem

 

NO DOMINION

 

The trigger filled the barrel while the rest kept

inside guns of what they called themselves haters.

It was cold here that night when avengers invaded

this olden island. I knew what they meant when they

said death. They told me not only  the jungle got killed

 

but the rest of the men, too. They said losers like me

had to be careful, get my canteen, walk sparely, act

unbeaten and stay strong - boned. I was drenched with

blood,  but they just spat their wits on me, that they said

those were only tears and sweat, those got transparent

 

and numb, those got stupid too. They told me I'd never win

any battle, that I would only be a liability. At first, I discreetly

grabbed those armaments. Some of them are lethal. I saw them

looking at me dumbfounded. They snickered at my recessive

 

head - that head you knew which would always be bullied

and throbbed. They counted down my life. I conformed

to them, finally, so I'd  live. I had to be dominated. I knew

 

this place lived for only once that we had to pull those

triggers, shoot the rest til birds on trees got awakened

that we made their sarcophagus, instead. Once again,

these triggers didn't stop laughing. I was still helpless.

 

   

Sarah Gamutan's poems are forthcoming in Sparkbright Magazine, Poetry Space and Subliminal Interiors Magazine. You can visit her website at www.poetrypoem.com/sarahgamutan or find her at www.facebook.com/sarah06142010.

Christopher Hivner- A Poem

Revolutions

I rode the train all night
from the docks
to the avenues,
uptown to midtown,
past the projects
through industrial park,

and she slept next to me
for hours,
her head on my shoulder,
half-sentences
squeaking from
thin, naked lips,
her hands occasionally
grabbing at the air,
strands of soft hair
playing over
her forehead.

She had gotten on
at the avenues,
the seat next to me
the only empty,
she made a call
then was out,
sliding into my side
when we curled
past midtown,
entwining her arm
through mine,
her hand
resting on my wrist.

Between the rhythmic clacks
of the train
I inhaled
her perfume
wishing I was
whoever was in
her dream,
the man worthy
of being arm-in-arm
and receiving
her coos and moans,
not the one
who’d already pocketed
the phone
and rifled
her wallet.

I stood
to finally get off
at my stop
and she called me
Ray or Roy,
asked me
to come back to bed.

I stared at her,

wondered what
she was running from,
how many revolutions
would she make
before ending up
back home.

Scanning her phone,
I found Roy
at number two,
after mom,
left a message
for him
to come and get
his girl
before she
hurts herself
or someone else
does it for her.

I dropped the phone
back into her purse,
got off the train
and went home.

I fell asleep
staring at the ceiling
dreaming of gravity
and my face in the Sun.

bio: I live in Pennsylvania, usually write while listening to music and enjoy an occasional cigar outside on a star-filled night. A chapbook of poetry, "The Silence Brushes My Cheek Like Glass" can be read for free at scars.tv. A book of short horror stories, "The Spaces between Your Screams" was published in 2008. Details on all my writing can be found at www.chrishivner.com

Dylan Gerard Thompson- Poetry

A girl
Her black hair
Her dark Kali skin
Sitting with her inside a hut shelter
Watching the rain for a time in silence
Walking with her through the rainstorm
On a dirt road through green mystery life
I don't know any names
Nameless to each other still
Soaked to the skin
We both stare
The fire between us is
The reason her umbrella
Hasn't been opened yet

When you meet Bukowski
At a bar, kill him
When you see Ginsberg
At the coffee house, kill him
I'm not them
I don't need to know
How to write poetry
For you, for them
I've been doing it
Before I knew
What poetry was
That's what poetry is
Soul truth release
Never let a mouth tell you
How it's done


Cascade of yellow leaves under a tree
Spread out in interlocking repose
Painted into life
This is the real art we try to capture
Light green water towers trying to hide behind
Uncooperative late autumn trees loom over lake lands
Ancient carousel pony ornate frosting now rust
Staked into someones tiny front yard square
Overgrown in withered winter husks
A shape moves in the black rain
Floating through the night
I can see it clear as my own face
Across the road then gone
In the overexposed morning light
Cascade of red leaves under a row of trees




Dylan Gerard Thompson is an artist of words and images. Today he gets by selling his images and performing for the Rennaissance Faire. From a very young age he knew art was his calling and the only career he could be happy with. His goal in life is to make this his sole livelihood.  Recently his words were published in Electric Windmill Press and World Poetry Movement, his images in Electric Windmill Press, Station Hill Press, and Graffiti Kolkata. He just finished work on his first book titled VILE (forthcoming, Electric Windmill Press.) and a chapbook of his poetry and images. (forthcoming, Burning Apple Press) He has a showcase of some of his image work at http://swordofdoom.tumblr.com/ He's lived in Eagle River Alaska, Dun Laoghaire Ireland, and Medjugorje Bosnia & Herzegovina via charity work and back packing he currently resides in Ringwood New Jersey. He's a Outward Bound graduate and hopes to take a road trip across the United States someday soon.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Snapdragons Crackle

Snapdragons crackle

in the air for Maura

and her flowing gait, 

a swagger neither Nora

nor Maureen would ever

let a suitor savor.

Maura knows 

that in her wake

men with scythes

and burlap sacks,

creep like gators,

eyes afire, jaws agape.

Nora and Maureen

can smell these men.

Unlike Maura

and her flowing gait,

Nora and Maureen will smile,

take their time and wait.

------------------------------------------------------

The way young women (or mature women) walk has always been intriguing for most men. Before tattoos became an accessory almost as common as earrings, ladies who walked carefully were often quick to criticize ladies who did not. The problem is, some women have no governor to regulate their sway and unseemly admirers can sometimes be a problem.

Brian Le Lay- Three Poems

All the Good Health in the World

When we cored the globe like an apple
(Me with my semantics
You with your stupidity)
I wished you (not in so many words)
all the good health
in the world

My eyes rusted over,
My toenails turned the black of a penny

My lungs collapsed like carnival tents
on the foot-flattened grass of a vacant churchyard,
having given you all the good health
        in the world

I became a crumpled dollar bill,
The doctor fixed me up
a synthetic lung from the stray hair
you left hanging from the ceiling

    Real nice, real nice,
My relatives from Pennsylvania say
over au gratin potatoes, glass gravy boats,
Salt and pepper shakers in the shape
of buildings that are long gone.

"So will you ever graduate from Easy Street?"

There are many lost shoes that swing from powerlines,
Hanging mist and flashing lights between us,

But at least you are far

and that is enough.



Gerrymandering

Black
And white
Brown and blonde

The shades
And coarseness
Of skin
And hair

The stars in Williamsburg Brooklyn
Versus the stars
in Abingdon Virginia at midnight

Man and woman
Especially
Man and woman

The disparities keep us
Pushing and pulling
For progress

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe
On East 3rd and the Grand
Old Opry in Nashville

Samuel Beckett
And Glenn Beck
On the same shelf

Nature has played
A terrible trick
On us all



My Archimedean Restlessness

I've abandoned literature altogether
    and become a mathematician
I wake up in the middle of the night, naked,
stubbing my toe on an end-table
    while looking for a piece of paper

Next day, at lunch with my friends, I say,
"Sorry I'm late, was awake all night.
Got an idea for the most badass equation ever."



Brian Le Lay is the editor of Electric Windmill Press. He wrote the books Don’t Bury Me in New Jersey (Electric Windmill Books), Please Make an Internet Catchphrase Out of the Headline Written to Report My Death (forthcoming, Piggybank Bandit Books, 2011) and Our Brick-and-Mortar Basement Apartment America (Piggybank Bandit Books, 2012). His poems have most recently appeared in The Prism Review, The Montucky Review, and BoySlut.
 

Jason E. Hodges- Two Poems

 St. Dymphna

The cold wind now blows in the night
An image of St. Dymphna etched in silver hangs from my neck
It’s all that protects me now
For there’s not much comfort in the world when you can’t escape your mind
The once calm world I knew as a child has receded with the tides of life
Black clouds hang over the moon
Blocking out the last bit of light in this darkened sky
Draped with thickness, it refuses to shine
For things change place as time drifts by
The straitjacket has taken the place of my security blanket
Its warm comforting hugs get me through the night
The padded room is as soft as my childhood bassinet
And I pray
St. Dymphna, draw your sword, wrap your wings around me
For the dark storm blows in with a chill
It freezes me down to my bones
For the warning label under the RX number
Now seems as melodic to read as a nursery rime
The helmet is now a necessity
For you get no where beating your head against the wall
The wall of humanity or at least what they say humanity is
And the bottle with once life giving drink is now in the business of life taking gulps
Gulps of drunkenness sustain me
At times, the only way to make it through the loneliness in life
But with each drop, the bottle seems to steal away any hope I have left
Drinks of despair are turning the bottle up and realizing it’s empty
Then passing out to the warm buzz of the streetlight above me
And I pray
St. Dymphna, draw your sword, wrap your wings around me
For the cold wind still blows in the night

Teardrops Of The Soul

　
Teardrops of the soul fall in the most honest of ways
Plummet from your eyes with joy filled emotion
For, nothing that is true could ever be hidden
Hidden by a smile saying, all is what it must seem
Seem to the watching
The watching gaze that caged you for much too long
Locked you away from the happiness of having
For bars of stress are far worse than bars steel
But one day your lock was finally broken
Your tears cut through the strongest words from the chaining
Binding your spirit no more
For, teardrops of happiness drop with such beauty
Such strength
Falling diamonds from your eyes screaming with whispers of joy
Whispers of freedom shouting from your insides laying softly on your out
Like a shawl of the shoulders holding you warmly
Shaking your world with the slightest of ease
At last you see freedom in the new eyes that behold you
Dripping from the eye, yet streaming from your heart
Dripping to the pool of consciousness
Smashing the pools surface with the softest of weeps
For weeps of happiness have the power to pierce the hardest surface
Creating waves in your mirrored refection
Distorting the face looking back up at you
The waves will finally fall into ripples
Settled are these waters of change
Gentle is the reflection from the pool right below you
As your face comes into focus and your teardrops stop falling
You see the new you looking up from the water
A new life for the having has finally come
　




Bio for Jason E. Hodges

I began writing in 1989. Shortly after I began, I saw the movie Drugstore Cowboy with William S. Burroughs. After reading his books, I was hooked. I would go on to discover Charles Bukowski, Harry Crews, Anais Nin, and Anne Sexton. My most recent work can be found at The Fringe Magazine, The Camel Saloon, Indigo Rising Magazine, Raven Images, The Dirt Worker’s Journal, Daily Love, The Rainbow Rose, Dead Snakes, Books On Blog, The Second Hump, Poetic Medicine, Catapult To Mars, CrossTIME Science Fiction Anthologies Volumes 8, 9, and 10, as well as an article based on an interview I did with Harry Crews that appeared in Our Town Gainesville Edition, Spring 2011.

Devlin De La Chapa- A Poem

fatal love chase

radiator falters
the separation-
120 degrees

somewhere
in Texas,
a revolver spins

she wipes her nose
the hit is bad
tweaking hard

daylight breaks
thunder cracks the sky
blow melts the heat

from his hands
they glitter of gold
slugs plated of love

 

bio update:  DEVLIN DE LA CHAPA has been published here and there, and is scheduled to appear elsewhere.  She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and has received an Editor's Choice at The Camel Saloon.  Devlin edits @ http://boyslut.wordpress.com.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

 

The Grammar Years

 

On that train an hour ago,

I saw a teacher I had years ago

but he did not see me.

A proper man was he

 

who in the margins of my papers

wrote his sermons in a script

so perfect and so neat

they looked like samplers.

 

But on that train an hour ago

I glowed in exultation when I saw

his index finger curl and pluck

a small erratum from his nose.

 

 

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Decades ago, when tuition at a good university was $30 a credit hour, 

I stayed in graduate school in English because I hoped to become 

a writer. Then a professor told me that publishing fiction or poetry 

would not get me tenure. Instead I had to publish criticism of other 

people's work. Right then I quit because I knew I'd rather be carrion 

than the hyena that eats it.

Christopher Hivner- Two Poems

 

Medicine

 

I couldn’t give anyone

what they needed,

not in words

or with my hands.

No expression of my faith

gave them solace,

no encouragement

put the color

back in their eyes.

 

If I walked from here

to there and then back,

the stories I could tell

to strangers

gathered at my feet,

glassy-eyed and open-mouthed,

giving off the odor

of contempt

while licking the sweat

from my ginger skin.

 

The world reached out

across a sky

streaked with meteors,

blotted with comets

and debris,

satellites from the deep

coming home,

Klaxons blowing,

bells tolling,

bellwhethers bleating,

the world reached out

knowing the danger.

 

I walked from here

to there and stayed,

told no stories,

reached no conclusions.

The world

gathered at my feet

giving off the odor

of decomposition,

repeating prayers

with tongues

made from pages of the Bible.

 

When the sun rose,

a washed out blandishment

to the bleeding sky,

I still couldn’t give anyone

what they needed.

 

 

Any of Them

 

He spun the globe

with a tired finger.

 

Something broke

in the background.

 

The countries blurred together

in a miasma of ink and imaginary lines.

 

Glass covered the kitchen floor,

and protruded from a child’s foot.

 

His hand hovered over the globe,

deciding when to descend.

 

Screaming filled the house like water

while the mother tried to soothe.

 

He stopped the globe, Burkina Faso,

spun it again.

 

The glass came out,

cleanup began.

 

The globe slid under his finger,

South Bend, Indiana.

 

The mother is shouting his name

to come and help with the children.

 

He spun it so hard,

the blue and white sphere wobbled on its axis.

 

Mother shouting at him, pleading with the children,

children shouting at one another, pleading with him.

 

His index finger jabbed violently,

southern Portugal shuddered.

 

The injured child is running with fear,

trailing blood through the house.

 

His eyes cross painfully

watching the globe spin and spin.

 

“Why won’t you help me?

Why are you just sitting there?”

 

Fictional borders disappear

into the greedy oceans.

 

Why is the TV on when no one is watching it,

why must the kids scream every word they say?

 

He doesn’t stop it this time,

letting it choose for him.

 

The din becomes a hum

becomes an epoxy in the folds of his brain.

 

It stops under his pointing finger,

northern Pennsylvania, home.

 

Where did the quiet come from,

and why is it building in his ears?

 

He was pointing to his own house,

to his own beating heart.

 

He could feel them around him,

their voices fighting to get in.

 

He ended

where he started.

Jason E. Hodges- A Poem

Black Magnolias

When a child is raised in nothing but darkness
Adulthood is cast in a constant eclipse
Darkness in the form of ridicule
This is one of the greatest sins on earth
Far greater than the seven that were laid out so long ago
For after this sin is committed
Everything that stands before them lies in ash covered memories
Living the rest of their life on the edge of existence
Diet pills take the place of what once was mother’s milk
A mother who set impossible standards of weight for what a young lady should be
That was incapable of hearing the words that she spoke so easily
For the bulimic ballerina bows beautify before the crowd
Accepting their cheers of approval
For not only her graceful flow of melodic dance movement
But her rail thin appearance
An angel is what she believes the crowd sees in her mind
Then backstage she shudders in shame as she undresses in front of the mirror
She knows what the refection will say
Its whispers of death scream in her mind, “One more laxative and all will be fine.”
Self-induced retching seems to bring to the surface all that needs to come out
Physical and mental
Both come deep from within
For everything’s a crutch, but the crutch can sometimes give way
Give way to a free fall of doubt
A free fall of the world that surrounds the ballerina
A world scarred by demons of the past
But now it’s show time
No time for worry
Exhaustively thin the ballerina twirls into her performance
Her pail skin stretched over her bones
Sparkle with glitter under the burning stage lights
Dizzy but still dancing for the show must go on even at the cost of her life

David Pointer- A Poem

Bootstrappin’

Shaking hands with

the technological

talons attached to

the military industrial

complex—you’ve

got a spinal column

forged on project

bricks-the Presidency

seems out of reach

even though teachers

told you otherwise,

but platoon 1057

has a place for you,

and upon  return

upwardly mobile

society does not

Bio: David S. Pointer was the son of a piano playing bank robber who passed away when David was 3 years old. David would later serve in the Marine military police. He has been publishing poems in the small press for 21 years.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

 

Shoppers in Melee 

State and Madison, Chicago. 

Saturday, high noon.

Shoppers in melee.

Surrounded, I give up.

Against the curb, I see

suddenly the sea foam up

and in the distance

white birds soar and glide,

black apostrophes

cleaver split

but still tangential,

rising, falling.

Then the stoplight

flashes green and I

prepare to sally off

till I look down

and see against

the curb the great

white waters bowl

as one by one people

drop and drown.

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Donal Mahoney remembers in this poem the first time he took the bus downtown from his little neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. He wanted to see the sights at Christmas time. At 14, he was simply overwhelmed by the crowds amassed on all four corners of State and Madison, an intersection he still sees quite frequently, many decades later, if only in his mind. St. Louis, home of the world champion baseball Cardinals, and his home now, is a nice city but it has no intersection quite like State and Madison in Chicago any day of the year.