Thursday, February 23, 2012

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

A Southern Girl’s, Uncoiling

Whenever I mention you,
the doctor always asks
what do I see,
 
now that you’re gone, 
when I think of you. 
I say I see thighs,
 
tanned and gleaming,
kissed by the proper
Bonwit skirt, rising
 
through the terminal
toward me and above
your thighs
 
that smile,
a Southern girl’s,
uncoiling.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Linda M. Crate- A Poem

destruction of the moon 
 
you grew into a habit I could not break myself
of, left me bereft one day after allowing your stain
to pour forth in cherry blossom kisses as pink as your
lips which once fell over me in seasons of love; I
didn’t know what to do when you left me for dead —
my lungs burned as if I’d never breathed before,
as if the salt falling from my eyes was eroding them
instead of the vast plains of naturally rosy cheeks; 
I chopped down the trees of your love and tore down
your monoliths of lies, I watched as they shattered
to be blown away as dust by the wind; I wandered
lonely as a star hung alone in a lazuline night
with only the cruel moon for company, I crumbled the
moon into the mouth of the hungry sea because it was you.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Ally Malinenko- A Poem

Inside the Waiting House

Somewhere inside me there is a house,
with the windows thrown open.
The floorboards are split where the roots
have come through.
And both the sunlight
and the moonlight
make their home here together.
They do not argue
or vie for attention.
They bow and wend up the stairs,
polite,
with bent heads
and gentle words.

There is music playing
softly
something on violin
and it wavers in the air
like a memory
just about to surface.
There are also mice
and bent blades of grass,
there are flowers,
dew to drink.

But also
and most importantly,
inside this house
there is you and I,
untouched
by everything that is happening
outside
where I am lost miles from you
and you are thirsty
with the straw bent in the water,
slowly,
too slowly
dying.

Inside this house
is the night that I made up,
the day that I pretend,
the you I didn’t know,
and the me I should have been.
I remember the day you almost died but didn’t
and the feeling that came with that.
I thought it would last longer.
Longer than this night, at least.

Inside me there is a house,
and we wait.
We touch, lightly
and we wait.
We do not speak
and we wait.
And I want this house
to be real,
the way the song is real
the way your voice
used to be real, higher than mine, thicker.
The way
I am still painfully real.



Ally Malinenko is the author of The Wanting Bone (Six Gallery Press). Her second book of poems entitled Crashing to Earth is forthcoming from Tainted Coffee Press. She currently lives in the part of Brooklyn the tour buses don't come to and rambles on and on over at shipwreckedpoetry.blogspot.com.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

John Grochalski- A Poem

aspirin bottle

aspirin bottle
on the nightstand
mingling
with the alarm clock
and my insomnia
a sure sign
that i’ve been drinking
too much again
this aspirin bottle
reflecting in the
moonlight
shows me a lack of stamina
age creeping in
inability becoming manifest destiny
like my legs getting tired
on the walk  to work
falling asleep
on the couch
to a bad book or movie
this aspirin bottle
housing the little white pill
that i must take
for the headaches
for the unrepentant hangovers
this plastic green bottle
that hasn’t left
the nightstand in months
that just plain sits there
like a statue
like home decor
like a harbinger of doom
a glittery talisman
or a beacon
letting me know
how much
i’m pushing
and pushing
and that the world
will only
push back harder
with each new
and passing
day.


Bio:  John Grochalski is the author of two books of poems The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008) and Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he constantly worries about the high cost of everything.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Kevin Ridgeway- Three Poems


Little Bill


standing 4 feet nine
a hundred and two pounds
the king of the psych ward
dominoes tournament
fistfuls of loose
cigarette winnings
wig askew on his head
murmuring a raspy stutter
shouting glory hallelujah
he was dodging the bookies
with a staged suicide
hiding behind the
fresh linens and
lithium tremors
of these fluorescent
hallways
seventy years of stories
and failures
and only two
hours before
his release,
he crumpled up
his phone
number in
my free hand
and said kid
let’s go
play the ponies
sometime


Plague of Fear

widespread panic
people shivering in
all corners of the world
alerts that cause them to
hide underneath
shading eaves
televisions blaring
talking heads
warning them of
the doom in the hearts
and minds of
men pulling the strings
of fear, that eternal
black art form of
angry magic
that causes societies to
fall to their knees
and for all wheels
to come to a standstill
heavily breathing
these wide masses
embrace themselves
and implode
year after year
infomercials and politicians
empty their wallets
these silently weeping souls
drown in pools of lost freedom
while Chia Pets bloom
in this empty world
of broken promises


Shut-In

hiding in a suburban cave
on a ravaged easy chair
in long underwear
stained from
a dented can
of chili
with obscure old movies
lighting
piles of scattered dog shit

alone and avoiding
the fractured energy
of small talk
and the anti-cinematic
nature of the plastic
menace of
the ugly world
beyond the front door

the black and white
worlds reflected in
ashen eyes
the swollen moonshine
nose knob hucksters
egg headed dames
and dead celebrities
keep me company
on demand


Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California.  Recent work has appeared in Underground Voices, The Camel Saloon and Carnival Literary Magazine.  His chapbook "Burn Through Today" is forthcoming from Flutter Press. 

Monday, February 13, 2012

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal- 2 Poems


NOTHING MATTERS

If I could sleep,
I would fall asleep
and never wake up.

Perhaps I am
scared of livng.
Nothing matters
without her in my life.

Things like this eat
at me. I eat my words.
But I'm not hungry.



I SHOULD BE HAPPY

I am crazy
to be drinking alone.
I should smash
my head on a rock.
Intoxicated,
it should not
hurt so much.
I should be happy
drinking sweet wine.
This thing called life
has me by the throat
with rough hands.
I should be ready
to fight against
the bad things
coming my way.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Linda Crate- A Poem

you’re the one
 
you’ve made me recall the edges of
a smile whose topography before you
was eclipsed by rocks of maudlin grey —
you chase the darkness of days away,
cutting through the darkest clouds with
your light that resounds joy like a 
Christmas carol; you’ve etched your
anthem in my heart, and the wings of hope
flutter in my chest beneath skeins of blood —
you’re the only one that I can trust;
I feel like I could tell you all my secrets,
but still you would fall over me in waves
of love, I’ve never entrusted anyone with
the key of my heart — yet I believe in
you well enough to let you crack that code.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

David Pointer- A Poem


One Marine’s Tale

Mike didn’t want
destabilizing democratically
elected governments on the
other end of his sniper rifle,
so he took his place
unemployed           watching
lines grow like  lions’ tails
watching                his boys
video games making over
their easy going masculinity
into serviceable product, and
the post traumatic stress
                disorder diagnosis
following him around had
nothing to do with war time
atrocities, or a well placed
shot, rather being deployed
by upward mobility
                 mapmaker bureau
so far down range at home as 
to be a fringe area non-factor
 
 
 
David S. Pointer has recent acceptances for "The War and Peace Poetry Anthology," "Indiana Horror Anthology 2012," and "The 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly."

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Bryan Murphy- A Poem

Missionary

I.

Elke sets out her limbs
over Playa Chisme’s sand;
fitters and joiners intuit the call
to her expert assembly line.

Dark shoulders stoop to conquer;
firm hands do as they’re told;
lifeguards inspect her for danger, close-up:
beached Venus, pale as an overturned turtle.

Chismera housewives spit full and loud
at husbands’ empty shadows;
girlfriends hone nails to talons;
Elke flirts, blameless as afterbirth.

II.

Wheelchairs resound on red-earth paths,
overlaying laughter from within;
paradise’s emissary, surf-soaked mist,
welcomes them with joy.

Age has yet to set much mark
on pushing volunteers from ends of earth,
nor on their charges, who imbibe the universe
in a different light, if they see at all.

From the cool crisp edge of another world,
Elke has come to bestow her skills,
flex for them her full firm figure
in servitude, as therapy.


III.

The wheel-chaired children are loud at play;
nearby Elke flips a page.
The Maya men will soon be back
to test her concentration.

The nightclub toilet stinks. Lupita
swings it open, meets Elke’s gaze,
sees Lucy’s dark locks locked tight
between light-tanned thighs.

A pacific blue moon dazzles
Playa Chisme’s early risers, not Elke:
she’s gone on to the next hidden port;
the job was not for her.


Bryan Murphy is a former teacher, translator and frequent visitor to the Pacific coast of Mexico. He lives in Turin, Italy. A volume of his short stories, provisionally entitled "Out of Padania" is forthcoming.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Chino and Chambray

Forty years older than I,
Charles, in his tweed cap, stands starched
in gray chino and blue chambray.
 
For more than a year his broad tie
has let the same iridescent duck
fly against a vermillion sky.
 
Like a Vatican Guard
he oversees the parking lot
I cut through each morning
 
far corner to far corner
as I cleave two triangles of cars
parked in my wake.
 
I ask him one morning,
“Charles, do you mind
when I cut through your lot?”
 
“Not at all, sir,” says Charles
as he stares straight ahead
and starts the windmill
 
of his good arm to lead
the pearl Hummer
now pulling in.