Sy Roth- A Poem

The Photographer at Oswiecim

Interminable clickety-clack of train,

shorn like sheep,

bags piled miles high into an empty grave,

hunger and thirst soften resolve to live,

they sit for the photographer.

Desolate faces gaze blankly at him,

the thousands who will take the gas,

become puffs of smoke.

He records them with his photos.

They like to record, to museum victims

to hear Wagner in the primal scream of the innocent,

in their last photographs.

The photographer sees the pyre of Faces,

their engraved wavy expressions of fear.

He poses them to imprint their humanity--

skinny women in their oversized striped costumes, rakish caps he designs,

bald, naked women prepared to meet Mengele, their unmaker,

hollow-cheeked men clip-clopping in their ill-fitting wooden clogs,

trusting children who laugh uneasily at his jocular faces.

They all sit for his camera to record having been.

Their pictures keep the photographer alive--

extra pieces of bread,

meat occasionally thrown into the broth,

and shots of schnapps to bring on forgetfulness.

Testaments, he refuses to destroy when ordered.

Forgotten, guiltless faces peering back at him.

The camera burned his hands,

black and white pictures seared and left a hollow place.

No beauty in them,

but he could not destroy them.

Amit Parmessur- A Poem

 

let me be a sacred child

I’m gonna say it again! Let me be

a sacred child. It’s gonna rain

pure, yellow bliss in my heart if you

people treat me like any other child.

Let me stay in innocence despite

my harsh experience. Let me

talk and dream of what’s sweet.

Let me joke like a mad, red clown. Let

me play, hide and seek. Let me be the

perfect blue boy or pink girl, who

will root firmly in the violent wild,

the one to blossom beautifully in

times of grief. Let me be

a sacred child. Let me give my mind

to my soul so that I can shine like

the orange sun. If you help my violet

ship I shall smash the toughest icebergs.

My past will never matter as long

as I am cherished. Let’s respect

each other, folks. I’m gonna say

it again! Let me be a sacred child!

I’m not scared, or a green ugly alien.

I wish to be like the indigo in the bow—

wise, wise, and only wise.

BIOGRAPHY: Born in 1983, Amit Parmessur has been published in over 100 literary magazines, like Ann Arbor Review, Salt, Hobo Camp Review, Misfits' Miscellany, Jellyfish Whispers, Kalkion and Red Fez. His book on blog Lord Shiva and other poems has also been published by The Camel Saloon. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Web Anthology. He lives in Quatre-Bornes, in Mark Twain’s paradise island Mauritius, with his cat and three dogs.

Linda M. Crate- A Poem

healing

 

I'm the scattered petals of a rose

I'll never go back together yet

you saw beauty in my brokenness -

and it was because of you that I was

sewn back together with a smile;

the scars remain and yet they do not

hinder me and you told me once that it 

would take more than a couple scars 

to robe me of my beauty, you are

the one that makes my heart sing.

 

Devlin De La Chapa- A Poem

Sucker Punched!

It was another Friday night, and
she’s whispering sensually in his ear,
the intoxication of her high-end
perfume stirs his senses, warms his beer;

Johnny Cash is playing off the jukebox,
the slab’s atmosphere is grazed by smoke
and mindless chatter, some decent,
others indecent, remnants of his past linger;

his eyes study the eloquent of her expression
when she boasts about herself in the present,
in the past, and how she quietly shies down
when he compliments her outlook; and

he fantasizes about her perfect glossed lips
suckling his kisses each time
a laugh escapes her;

he fantasizes about the soft of her hands
strumming his body each time
she picks up her beer glass;

he fantasizes about her lustrous cherry tinted hair
fanning out over his vacant pillows each time
she curled a loose curl behind her ear;
 
he thought about waking up with her tomorrow when
the sun was at its highest, perhaps another night?
but even he knew she was just one of many trophies to him,
but he liked the idea of her not sitting on his shelf;

he walks into the men’s room, coins in one hand, a beer
in the other, his thoughts marooned on more than her sex,
the rare novelty machine barely clinging to the wall
toys and taunts with him because he’s bought them all before:

      Pleasure Condoms, Paradise Condoms,
Fantasy Condoms, Inspiral Condoms;

      Micro-Thin Condoms, Durable Condoms,
Sensitive Condoms, Extra Lubricant Condoms;

      Glow-In-The-Dark Condoms, Flavored Condoms,
Scented Condoms, Tri-Colored Condoms;

feeling jaded, less fervent, he steps to the mirror and realizes
time in-a-fine-line was posing more of an insignificance to him
rather than an importance, and beneath era 31, the absolute of his
desires had been tending to seize at the slip of a coin all along;

so he shoves the loose change back into his pocket,
downs the rest of his warm beer, as he strolls past the
novelty machine he gives it a stern sucker punch- a sign
that it was time for him to dust off his trophy shelf

 

Robert Demaree- Two Poems

GREEK CLASS

As with golf or tennis,

I got started on Greek too late.

Our legendary professor

Peered out from under a green visor

And held that mastery of the rough breathings

Was a key to life.

They said he’d been a croupier,

That he once drove a bus.

The text he chose,

The writings of Lysias, I think,

Had little to recommend them

Beyond a certain intermediate ease.

I’ve forgotten how the rough breathings work.

What has somehow stuck

In memory’s craw

Are lines he must have liked

From a courtroom speech:

The man was in the room,

And the woman was corrupted in time.

ABENAKI LAMENT

after hearing a lecture by Dr. Robert Goodby of Franklin Pierce University

It is our n’dakina, our homeland.

We were the people from the East,

Here long before you came,

With your famous ships,

White chapels, village greens,

Your right to pray as you supposed

And insist that you were right.

You thought we vanished

Except for the names of places.

We were not Gypsies, the dark French

In your demented plan

To cleanse the stock.

Traces of our lives still

Linger in the rocky New England soil

And other places you do not know to look,

Invisible:

We are still here. We never left.

“Abenaki Lament” appeared in a slightly different form inThe Aurorean Spring/Summer 2010

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers (2007) and Mileposts (2009), both published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in the eastern U.S. He has had over 600 poems published or accepted by 125 periodicals in the U.S., Canada and U.K., including Cold Mountain Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Miller’s Pond, MediaVirus, Bolts of Silk, Louisville Review and Paris/Atlantic, and in four anthologies including the 2008 and 2010 editions of Poet’s Guide to New Hampshire and Celebrating Poets over 70.. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com 

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

The Lettuce Workers

 

Somewhere in California

a midnight one-eyed bus shoots

 

lettuce farm past lettuce farm

to abutment and a kiss.

Now the morning papers cry

 

15 sleeping Mexicans

glowed an hour or more.

Ali Znaidi- A Poem

It is Time for a Nap

 

Trains leave,

& nothing remains only

their echoes splitting

the tracks of the ears.

 

Birds fly by,

& nothing remains only

some of their feathers

falling on the bedroom

of the eyes.

 

Scented women pass by,

& nothing remains only

some fragrance travelling

in the tubes

of the noses.

 

They were all here.

But nothing remains only

sighs & blurry scenes.

 

Now it is really time

for a nap.

 

 

 

Contributor’s Bio:

 

Ali Znaidi lives in Redeyef, Tunisia where he teaches English at Tunisian public secondary school. His work has appeared in The Camel Saloon, phantom kangaroo, BoySlut, The Rusty Nail, Yes,Poetry, the fib review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Mad Swirl, Red Fez, & other ezines. His debut poetry chapbook Experimental Ruminations was published in September 2012 by Fowlpox Press (Canada). He also writes flash fiction for the Six Sentence Social Network—http://sixsentences.ning.com/profile/AliZnaidi.

James Mirarchi- A Poem

automobile

 

euphoric from concert

whose aural leftovers

rock my insides with guitar tremors

i sit in storm-battered cab

head reclined

nostrils packed with leather seat/tobacco scent

passing through centuries of possibilities

the road home is squiggled with prophetic headlights

a rain-smeared tablet of hieroglyphs

that confers with chanting billboards

as black sky closes down like waffle iron

turning me into breakfast for the gods

i (suddenly slathered in buttery sunrise)

am divinely digested

which sums up my typical post-concert state

BIO

James Mirarchi grew up in Queens, New York.

In addition to his poetry collections, "Venison" and "Dervish," he has written and directed short films, which have played at festivals. His poems have appeared in Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, Poydras Review, gobbet, Boyslut, The Houston Literary Review, and Subliminal Interiors Magazine. 

Frank Praeger- A Poem

Off-centered

Their braids, their cuffs;
cross-eyed,
bandy legged,
insistent
cries 
marginalized.
Icy marble stoops
like so much else
out of context.
Restless legs twitching,
night a loss, a bracketed gap,
a thrumming, a twang, 
a pottable plant hung
far from any long held blame;
to get on home
ignoring dust or guilt.
Some say badgered;
crepe-soled, crept
where walk once did.
Tripped up, spent,
a lessened me
no tale can scotch,
past glory, the slightest shocked.
What can comparisons tell - 
grasshoppers hopping, 
trees, too, shaken?
Scrambing in the offing.
No plant need not be broken.
Not to be caught
off-center, the unnatural balked.

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Big Meeting at the Corporate Office

When a young woman like that

sails into the conference room, 

all masts billowing, 

there's nothing the men 

around the table can do 

except take a breath 

and wait for her 

to settle in her chair, 

open her laptop 

and fuss for a moment 

with some errant hair 

before she fixes her stare 

on the podium to wait

for the chairman to arrive 

and take it from there

if he possibly can. 

The chairman won't know 

the young woman has said

everything his men 

will remember tomorrow

without saying a word.

David S. Pointer- A Poem

Before Food Processed with
Ionizing Radiation was Fab

Back when trees were
cowboy ranch décor or
sacred Indian grounds, and
over and under economics
were bringing in smoky
asphalt urbanization where
child laborers had to fight
over spoiled Mastodon milk
and spark plug sandwiches
then someone stood up on
the bottom-side of an over
turned ash bucket, and saw
the rich were way too busy
cooking the books to ever
feed the multitudes of poor


Bio: David S. Pointer is the author of “Sinister Splashplay” from “Virgogray Press” available through www.lulu.com, and “Sundrenched Nanosilver” coming from “Brian Wrixon Books in Canada through “Blurb.”

James Babbs- Three Poems

I Found A Picture of You

I found a picture of you

between the pages of this book

I don’t remember

putting it in there

but I opened it up

and

there it was

you were laughing at

something

somebody must have said

sitting on the orange sofa

in my parents’ living room

and

immediately I knew

exactly when it was taken

what we’d been doing that day

the promises we made to

one another

but never meant to keep

If You Came Over Tonight

I felt like

I needed to write this

because

I wanted to tell you

about the darkness

how it sneaks in

on its quiet little feet

coming right up next to me

before I even know it’s there and

maybe

you won’t understand this

but it’s okay

because

I want to tell you

the way it hovers above me and

follows me around

like a ghost

drifting through every room and

no one else sees it

but I know it’s there

I can feel it

in my bed at night

the weight of it

pushing against me and

I guess

I must have been a teenager

the first time it found me and

I was thinking

if you came over tonight

instead of getting drunk

maybe

you could just hold me

close enough

so there wouldn’t be

any space left

for the darkness to crawl inside

The Last of Five

when I was growing up

I sometimes wished my

parents were younger like

some of the other kids’

parents were but I

was the last of five

children and there were

sixteen years between my

oldest sister and me

when I was born

my father was already past forty

my mother nearly thirty-six

they were middle-aged and

the initial excitement

of parenthood had faded

by the time I came along

but I guess they wanted

one last chance before

they were finished and

if they hadn’t then I

wouldn’t be here writing this

I have published hundreds of poems over the last several years in print journals and online.  I live in the same small town where I grew up.  I work for the government but don’t like to talk about it.  I have a cherry tree and two grapevines in my back yard and several pesky rabbits.  My full length collection Disturbing the Light is coming soon from Interior Noise Press.  

John Grochalski- Three Poems

retiree

marty comes walking back into the office

like he’s king of the world

he retired last month

talks about how great it’s going

but he’s already back for a visit

so how great can it really be?

they swarm him like he’s a rock star

everybody wanting a taste of the good life

which marty is happy to give to them

talking about his plans for a vacation to dublin

the jazz festival he played a week ago

he shows everyone the concert t-shirt

with his name on the back

says i finally found some fame at sixty-four

they fawn over him like he’s a greek god

even though not three months ago they were

stalking around the building

talking about how lazy marty is

wondering when he’s going to retire

and get out of their hair for good

absence makes the heart grow fonder, i’m told

from a jack to a king and other clichés

they laugh and joke with marty

love him now because they don’t have to see him every day

i stay away from the man

i didn’t like him then

and i’m not going to pretend to like him now

he sent some of my poems to human resources

trying to get me fired

accused me of being an anti-semite because i’m polish

and my head is shaved

so why pretend to be best buddies

because it’s the common thing to do

from my point of view

marty wasted twenty-seven years of his life in this place

with nothing to show for it

but one divorce and a row of yellow teeth

he looks like a wasted old prune whose life is on the clock

i envy him nothing

but the time he’ll have now

only because i know he’ll squander it on stupid shit

when i could turn it into magic

he’ll keep coming back to this place on a weekly basis

shooting his breeze

telling everyone how good he has it

and they’ll listen less and less

complain about how good old marty is always showing up

right at lunchtime

check their watches

and hope that he’s found something better to do

this thursday afternoon

than come waltzing into this place

the scene at cookie’s clubhouse

we were both tired of being white

tired of punk rock

tattooed white idiots screaming into microphones

tired of summer nights in pittsburgh

we wandered down penn avenue

down to the black bar

because the music emanating from the place

was something that we both loved

and inside it was packed with bodies

jostling to music or just standing around

there were no white faces in the joint

just purple neon and joy

and this pleased us

so we went inside with our petty little fears

only it wasn’t like the movies

the music didn’t screech to a halt

no one turned our way

there were no rows of angry, suspecting faces

mad at us for killing their buzz, their good time

as we made our way toward the bar

just people singing along to d’angelo

and then tony toni tone

not an ounce of flaccid punk rock bravado in the joint

tattooed jackoffs screaming into microphones

no import beer

just budweiser in cold cans

which we drank at the bar

as nervous as two white boys in a black bar could be

but there was really nothing to be nervous about

just music and dancing

and conversation about another wasted pirates season

talk of the end of summer

talk of football

and we stood there decidedly white

decidedly not punk

when these two girls and a guy took pity on us

had us play darts with them

as tony toni tone morphed into blackstreet

morphed into johnny gill

and we looked at each other with wide eyes

because some bar was finally playing all of the music

that we listened to

in our white heads on black nights in the city

and the guy kept calling me ace ventura

his girlfriend said that he thought that i looked like jim carrey

maybe i did

jim carrey was a fine thing to be on a summer night

playing darts and drinking beer in cookie’s clubhouse

jim carrey probably got a lot of pussy

without the perils of color and punk rock

and i remembered you turned to me and smiled

whispered how much you’d like to date the other girl

if only

if only what? i said back

forgetting what city we were in

what time and place

which is forever that time and place

in america.

anonymous

my wife and i

watch a bad movie about shakespeare

we give it a half hour

before we shut it off

my wife is a fan of shakespeare

but i could give or take him

the movie we were watching

theorized that big willy never wrote his plays

that they were instead

written by the earl of oxford

that shakespeare never wrote his plays

is an old argument that scholars

and action film directors will keep having

until absolutely no one cares

what struck me was how this earl of oxford

could get away with it

at least in the bits that i saw, he did

how great it must’ve been to have lived

in total creative anonymity back then

without the internet to expose and scandalize

the people i work with looked me up

before i even started my job

they had me pegged and boxed

without my having said one word

and they’d been reading my poems for a year

before i found out

they still read my poems

only with not as much gusto as before

especially when people show up in the verse

who may or may not be them

then they get pissed at me and create drama

try and send my shit to human resources

i guess i miss being anonymous on the job

even on this small and petty scale

not having to dissect each bit of writing

so as not to offend

i miss coming in and being nothing but a worker for the day

going home and doing my writing

having no one be the wiser

even if it was only just an illusion to begin with

i suppose i could use a pseudonym

or stop writing about the job

but what would be the point now?

would if i could

i’d want to be like the earl of oxford

sit in my regal little box at the globe

and let some fucking actor take all of the credit

for my work

while i and i alone

knew who was really

getting the words down.

Melanie Browne- Three Poems

Love Story 

 

we will bump elbows at a  party,

I will be  holding a bowl of

fruit on my head like Carmen Miranda,

and you will be dressed like Steve Mcqueen

or perhaps Tarzan, depending on my mood

the atmosphere will sizzle,

it will be like we found sanctuary

after running for centuries

in worn out off-brand tennis shoes,

you will grab a banana from my bowl

and make obscene gestures with it

and I will laugh like a hyena in heat,

I will write about our affair when I

am old and drinking wine

at my Italian Estate,

I will be able to write in Italian by then,

so everything will be that much more romantic

 

How to eat rocks

 

My seven year old asks me

if you can eat rocks,

I tell him I don't think 

that's such a good idea,

I tell him it could get stuck

inside your tummy,

he moves on to talking about

who he sits next to on the bus,

but I start thinking about all

the times I felt like

my soul had eaten a giant boulder,

or a megalith,

and I realized I never

practiced what I preached

 

 

 

The Search

 

I am searching for you,

looking through emails,

pictures, and my dreams,

I find bits and pieces of you,

like confetti at a birthday,

I sift through,

it drops to the floor,

I sweep it up and

try to glue you 

back together