Kelley White- Two Poems

Potter Place

Before Peyton there was Potter

who packed houses in Boston

and Baltimore, best entertainer

of his day, who said he was the bastard

son of a baronet and a slave, who said

he was creole, who said he was Indian,

never saying if American or Asian, who

danced on eggs, pulled seven wagons

with his chest, curled in an oven with raw

mincemeat pies and came out unbaked,

retired to a small New Hampshire hamlet, built

a grand house, followed his wife up a rope

and disappeared, and then the house

disappeared, and the town, all gone but

for a square rock-walled paddock graveyard

and a green and white historical plaque:

“This 19^th century master of the black

arts was known throughout America.”

And down the road in Franklin is born

the massmurderer Dr. Holmes.

Salt Lake Shocker

and HERE’s the photo to prove it! 

3-legged skater banned! Hockey

players are America’s smartest

athletes.  Every time I get plastered

my wife gets pregnant!  Nessie pregnant--

& Champ’s the daddy.  American monster

left her high & dry, charge angry Scots! 

Cleveland fights back.  New Jersey bum

is the real King of England! “If they let her

on the ice, we’re toast,” say superstars.

Statue of the Queen has human skin.

Coot, 89, has  world’s oldest working

dentures.  Gal strangled by her own bra &

panties. Mama was a saint–but I killed

her anyway! “They just keep getting tighter

and tighter!” Virgin Mary says: Repent–

the End Times are here. Egypt seeks

return of ‘McMummies’ from McDonald’s. 

Bighearted boss opens brewery for employees! 

Raccoons drink beer but won’t do laundry. 

I’m God’s gift to women–& I’ve got

12 kids to prove it! U.S. exporting lap

dancers to Afghanistan. I’m short, fat

and ugly–but gals ADORE me!

Was I wicked in a past life? Psychic fly

swatted. ‘It was a terrible, terrible mistake,’

says secretary.  I’m dying to marry

the lunatic who shot me twice!  If I had

taken your advice,  Dotti, I wouldn’t be

dead!

Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner-city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 PCA grant.

Carlos Rojas Jr.- A Poem

        Our Fallen

 

Walking the streets of Africa,

these massacres occur so unexpected

the other night some Marines died,

never be resurrected

everyone's got a day & time,

nothing in life's perfected

their families cry,

these are the times we see life in perspective

the purpose for the hurting,

these modern day disasters

I wish that I could call it,

I feel no one would answer

prayers for the dead

but they live on

as we continue fighting

these are my brothers,

this is family, we stand as one united

for all Marines who witnessed death but just couldn't escape

may the Lord's angels give you peace, and guide you to his gates

AMEN - Lyrical

 

4/12/12 Dedicated to Cpl.Kerns and Cpl.Reyes

 

 

My name is Carlos Rojas Jr.(Lcpl Rojas) I am a U.S. Marine

who wrote this last year after we lost 2 Marines in Morocco. 

God Bless.

 

 

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Melanie Browne- A Poem

For A Friend Who Walked Out Of The English Patient

You could have just closed

your eyes, tried a little 

transcendental meditation,

that might have hushed the noises

in your head,

a nurse that's always talking,

a burn patient with boring stories,

only Willem Dafoe is truly interesting,

an existential aside-

he's like the rabbit in Wonderland,

jumping about with fingerless gloves,

asking questions about the

state of our moral compass,

but even if meditation doesn't work for you,

there's a gory starvation scene,

people get buried alive in sand!

a plane begins to crash and burn,

dear friend where have you

buried your sympathies?

surely not with Kill Bill,

a movie with

confucious consciousness,

popping eyeballs

but no joie de vivre

Alan Catlin- Three Poems

     

Coming Home 1968

No one had to ask,

"Where have you been?"

nights he broke free

from the compound/house,

parents secured, that is locked

in their bedroom, all lines

of communication severed,

illegal weapon set on lock

and load as he readied himself

for a solitary patrol dressed in

full camo and black face paint

using light of a quarter moon

to lead the way down Garfield

Place to the jungle on Ocean

Ave where Charlie was dug in,

sleeping, just four blocks

from home and a half a world,

half a lifetime away.

Beneath the Wheel 1970

Life  in that year was a traveling

circus for him, an experience

somewhere between a religious

conversion and a mystical vision

of demons and devils competing

for first crack at a mind already raging

out of control with a draft notice

in one hand and an invitation to

appear at Whitehall Street in NYC

for a physical that could be the major

determining factor as to whether

the next few years would become an

expense paid jungle vacation in

South East Asia or studying another

corpus, the dead white men also known

as the major English authors; began

living in a gulf somewhere between

being a kind of blind leading the blind

student teacher of disaffected youth,

and the living dead, becoming a

different kind of walking casualty/

work in progress as  an unemployed,

unemployable long hair/ walking stress

machine on the edge of a precipice

of an inherited schizophrenic malaise

exacerbated by depression especially

now that a child had been born and another

was on the way; he wasn't quite broken on

the wheel of life but was riding on the rim of

the blown spare, half way to hell and asking

directions for how to get all the way there.

Our Big Night at the Movies, Utica, N.Y. 1969

Thursday night, one showing only

double features: Russ Meyer,

quadruple Double D babes,

Flesh Gordon takeoffs, soft porn

with a sense of humor, underbelly

of Hollywood stars and starlets:

Cynthia Myers, Long Dong Silver,

Donna Does It, John Hardwood,

Betty Boobs. Posted: No Alcohol Allowed

sleazoid theater, beverages snuck in

by the six pack in oversized,

multi-pocket, Army surplus jackets.

Weed smoking in Men’s Room timed

piss breaks, “a little weed will do ya”,

shifts. Ushers paid not to really care

or notice, dirty old men and long haired

college students, as long as they don’t

burn the place down. Extra charge

for Special Foreign Import Features”

“Carmen Baby”, “My Sister, My Love”,

Fanny’s Hill”. All almost as boring

as Carmen’s whore friend chewing gum

and talking on the phone as she got laid.

Still, Carmen and extra long necked Chianti

bottle, was the best thing on stage anyone

had seen since The Inferno burned down.

Ugly hooker working parking lot after flicks,

group rates available, “I’ve got the real

stuff you boys are looking for.”

“Hold that thought, Sweetheart,”

exit lines as cars sped off, mid-term

exams, overdue papers, Vietnam War,

could wait for another day, another

week of cheap beer and Mary Jane,

Oh, Sweet, Merciful Mary Jane.

Emily Strauss- Two Poems

Heritage Days Bass Fishing Contest

Drove the levee road to Lover’s Landing

for the striped bass fishin’— the river wide

and slow there— stepped into the bar

decorated in beer pictures of tan antlered elk

and mountain brooks, the one-toothed

owner let me sleep under a wide shade tree.

Old bikers in the dirt lot were standing around

passing time, one leaned on his carved wood cane,

the pale fishermen were burned red, their women

drove the giant diesel trucks. At the weighing

tent tournament contestants carried their prizes

high by the mouth, joked loudly to the bystanders

watching and waiting, got their numbers recorded,

country line-dancing music blasted from the jukebox

inside competing with the jocular beer drunk-in-the-

heat Americans back-slapping and guffawing.

The filthy mongrel terrier slept splayed out

in the dust, time and traffic left far back

in the week— finally everyone asleep

in their fancy trailers and RVs bought

for just this kind of day, the cottonwoods

wafting white tufts silently on the grass.

Dying Plants

in each dream I find them:

dried, wasting away in some corner

forgotten months ago, it's amazing

they still live, the soil cracked

in their tiny pots, I must water

them immediately, perhaps

they will revive, I mustn't neglect

them again amidst the chaos

of divorce, moving away, the house

and garden a shambles, I remember

when each one arrived, tended

so carefully and now look at them—

barely alive, poor bedraggled stems,

shriveled leaves, they must look like

me, nearly hopeless but I shall mend

them, here's my watering can, let me

find them all, I won't forget next time,

here-- a sip of water, the dirt soaking it up

instantly, I can leave now.

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry. Over 100 of her poems appear in dozens of online venues and in anthologies. The natural world is generally her framework; she often focuses on the tension between nature and humanity, using concrete images to illuminate the loss of meaning between them. She is a semi-retired teacher living in California.

Mark Nenadov- Two Poems

Lakeside Park in Early Spring

I've never had a better brunch with you
at a Dutch restaurant than this one
where way too much food
was piled on three individual plates,
each plate being fit to be divided in half
and scarfed down with syrup
    and ketchup
and maybe a little shaved ham.

The person behind us seemed a bit cold
    and old
as she squinted into some newspaper
perhaps documenting a dreary council meeting
in this little lazy lakeside town.

We left with a bit too much in the gut sack
and pack back into the car
off to the barber
where you had to sit in a line
and the barber might
    barb real fine
but the times have changed
and he says, "no sir, we don't do
straight razor shaves anymore".

And before long we are leaving downtown
down to the water
at Lakeside park
the trees still stand bare
with flowers just starting to bloom
and enough sun to
    dispel the gloom
and just enough fog everywhere
to restrict the zoom on my camera
and a dreamy duck edges along the rippled water.

This part of our day won't need a wallet, I imagine,
unless we stop for ice cream or something.
Well, I suppose
everyone has a right
    to dream.




Winter Abode

Silent night—put more bricks on the fire
    tonight is the final night
when the snow owl flies—so light up your pipe
be alert
you're frozen to the core
    you wise old man
owlish in all your ways
swallow your pride
smell the delight of the winter night
don't you hide
    throw chalky bricks on the fire
and light your pipe
    it's warm inside.   

(Previously appeared in Boston Poetry Magazine - May 24, 2013)



Bio: Mark Nenadov is a poet from Essex, Ontario, Canada. He lives with his lovely wife and their baby daughter. Mark's poems have appeared in publications in the United States, Canada, and Ireland. He also has a poem in the Whisky Sour City anthology recently published by Black Moss Press. See http://www.marknenadov.com for more details.

Sarah Lucille Marchant- Two Poems

To dissect inflections

Your voice takes up a shape not unlike a pyroclastic flow

singe my peacemaking, eat away at my sugar tongue

a swarm of cloud clings to you;

there is ash in your eyelashes, my dear

I gnaw at the ‘why’ behind all slidings in your words

unparalleled, this pitch throbs electric, 

rubbing against dead air 

while the queen observes coldly.

Depression

Someone stop this

sick cycle

this morsel of fog

this granule of devil-dust

lodged in my throat

as hours

pile up, breaking

my back.

If my sobs could purge

this virus, if shards

of glass and loose teeth

could bleed this phantom dry,

I would emerge

from my tomb of blankets

blinking fitfully

trying to familiarize

myself with the morning.

Sarah Lucille Marchant is a Missouri resident and university student, studying journalism, literature, and public relations. She is a contributing poet at the Flaneur art blog, a slush reader at Every Day Poets, and has had her writing published several places online and in print.

J.K. Durick- Two Poems

                              Inside the Box

 

Thinking in here isn’t as easy as it may at first appear with all

these well-worn paths making so very little difference, these

 

prescribed routines, kept appointments, good manners and

such. There’s something to say for comfortable conformity

 

and expected outcomes, appropriate language and clothing,

the gentle rain of certainty, the approval  and applause of

 

family and friends. There is something to say for the usual,

the ordinary, vanilla without any toppings, the predictable

 

without any embellishment, without fireworks or fanfare.

In here we celebrate the accepted, we foresee the foreseeable,

 

we predict the predictable, the probable, the most likely.

We love the sound of the obvious, believe only the believable.

 

And sometimes, we reach out and feel these enclosing walls,

the flapped over cardboard top and this flooring. We carefully

 

measure the space, rebreathe the air we just breathed, and

touch the limits very carefully and we feel safely empowered.

        Some Assembly Required

 

I’m looking for the instructions for all this,

The step-by-step plans the maker

Claimed would come along with it all,

 

You know, figure A and figure B, tab H

And flap Y, those easy to follow directions

Promised me when I bought into all this.

 

I’d gather the proper tools and spread them

Out on a level surface, situated just right.

I’d plan; leave off enough time in my day.

 

Perhaps, I’d make a pot of coffee or two,

Get my reading glasses, make sure there’s

Enough light to see things right, this once.

 

Perhaps, I’d try them out in Spanish this time,

Or French, or German, just to see if it ends

The same way for everyone else.

 

If I find I need help I could call in an expert,

Maybe look things up on the internet,

Google it, or even call in a neighbor or two.

 

I’m looking for these instructions everywhere.

Perhaps, my copy is gone, was thrown out, like

So many other things I’ve needed over the years.

 

Perhaps, I should ad lib, fake it, make it, take it,

Just go on with all this, instruction-less, blind,

The blind leading the blind, hoping.

Ross Vassilev- A Poem

radiance

there's the sun

the horrible, horrible sun

barreling through my mind

raining down all its foul energy

bestowing it on the children

little shits running around

with their sickening innocence

there's the old ladies

who live and die next door

wrinkled old prunes

returning to the dust

from whence they came

the one good thing

is the flowers: lounging about

like naked women sitting around

with their legs spread open.

Christopher Hivner- A Poem

In the Dark and in the Light

 

The desperation found me

in the a.m.

as it always did,

lying in bed

staring through

the haze of her breathing

looking for lies

that I could live with.

 

My head on a pillow

of my fingers,

propped at the perfect angle

to see the wall

and it's absence

of anything of me,

mine or ours.

 

She turned in her sleep

slipping her arm

over my chest,

resting her head

on my shoulder

before mumbling unconsciously

about missing things.

 

Her hair still held remnants 

of her flowery shampoo

mixed with the day's dirt.

The hairs tickled my nose

making me dream

of childhood,

my dog's fur 

under my hand,

a spring sky overhead,

the horizon

showing me the way forward.

 

Hearing the tick of the clock

as another hour turns

I slide my hand

over her warm skin

eliciting a coo.

She pushes tighter against me

settling a soft hand

on my stomach.

 

In a few hours

light will return

leaving me behind

in the darkness

where I mean more to her.                                     

The sun will steal

my relevance 

leaving me nailed

to the bare wall.

The only thing of mine here 

is me.

 

 

Bio: Christopher Hivner writes from a small town in Pennsylvania surrounded by books and the echoes of music. He has recently been published in Yellow Mama, Eye on Life and Illumen. A collection of short horror stories, “The Spaces Between Your Screams” was published in 2008. A chapbook of poetry, “The Silence Brushes My Cheek Like Glass” was published by Scars Publications and can be read for free at scars.tv

website: www.chrishivner.com

twitter: @your_screams

 

Robert Demaree- Two Haiku/Senryu

Haiku Gazetteer: North Carolina

Fraternity house,

Two Anglo-Saxon last names:

Kinston, Rocky Mount.

Liberal bias,

Don’t think like the rest of us:

Durham, Chapel Hill.

Factories empty,

Furniture, textiles outsourced:

Burlington, High Point.

Barrier island,

Thin strand supports huge condos:

Kitty Hawk, Nags Head.

ADVANCING YEARS-II

Chronic Condition

Doctors’ offices:

Golf magazines

Four years old.

Medicine Box

Fourteen-slot pill box:

Thought I filled it yesterday:

Time a faceless clock.

Aching Joints

Not an easy job,

Washing inside car windows:

Arthritic shoulders.

Orthopedics

Naturally enough:

The orthopedist’s office:

People that you know.

Independent Living

In the parking lot,

Signs of who and where we are:

Widows in Buicks.

Obit

Unexpectedly,

The obituary said:

By whose reckoning?

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, April 2007, and  Mileposts, October 2009, both published by Beech River Books, and Things He Thought He Already Knew, published online in 2007 by Slow Trains. The winner of the 2013 Burlington Writers Club Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives four months of the year. He has had over 650 poems published or accepted by 130 periodicals. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com 

Donal Mahoney- A Poem

Corner Office

 

Unlike his peers

his office holds

no photo of a wife

no indication that he has

fathered five

and probably

will father more.

There’s a silver ashtray, though,

and a tinkling chandelier 

and carpeting

his wife would like

soars across the floor.

 

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

Donal Mahoney spent his life

working in offices because 

he was no good with tools.

Michael Keshigian- Three Poems

RECOGNIZED

He stood there,
staring back at me,
odd expression upon his face,
he smiled after I did
from the other side
of a huge pane window
on the newly renovated office building,
appearing a bit more disheveled
than I remembered, more wrinkles
supporting his grimace
and receding hairline,
acknowledging me
when I nodded hello.
I use to know him well,
athletic, sculpted, artistic,
a well defined physique,
but his apparent paunch
negated any recent activity.
This window man
I thought I knew,
musician, writer, runner, dreamer,
now feasted off the stale menu
of advancing age,
aches, excuses, laziness,
failing eyesight and an appetite
for attained rights
decades seem to imply.
Yet I accepted him,
embraced him for who was,
aware that he would be the lone soul
to accompany me
toward the tunnel’s light
when all others have drawn the blinds.
“Walk with me,” I say.
He stays close.

VERSE

Once the rocking subsided,
as the sweat dried
to salty trails
and tsunami breaths
quieted to placid ripples,
she whispered verse into his ear,
rhythmic, romantic incantations
she memorized
to conclude such an event,
it lulled him to sleep
and she departed
as he drifted deeply,
riding the words into a dream,
suspended for hours
until he awoke to find
her pillow pronouncing
the indentation of her head
braided with blond reminders
of heated affection
tempered now
by the empty bed
and impending sunrise.
He glanced at the phone
upon the nightstand
whose lines initiated seduction
and the enchantment bound upon him,
wanton syllables
that pierced his armor.
No longer sleepy,
he stared, anticipating its ring
and the voice
that delivered his desire of rhymes.

HOARDING LIFE

His home was full of collectibles,
paintings, books, crafts,
possessing various degrees
of monetary worth and desirability,
yet what he cherished most
were items of menial worth
but considerable sentimentality,
items that pulled him back in time,
a large coffee can
he painted green for his
three year old son gathering rocks,
elementary songbooks,
a dilapidated grandfather’s rocking chair,
springs so rusty
they would snap if weighted upon,
the old Doberman’s chew toy,
his father’s tools,
buildup from previous generations
he hopes his children
will have the courage to discard
as he did, devoid of thought,
with his mother-in-law’s mementos
when his wife
was lost in remembrance,
grasping old photographs
and birthday cards
she once sent with our children’s
infant signatures attached.

Gene McCormick- Three Poems

The Neighbor’s House

It is a sun-faded, pinkish salmon-colored aluminum sided split-level so popular in the nineteen-fifties. The eaves and trim are white, dark shingles cover the roof and electrical wires run from and alongside the house. The furniture is straightforward, chosen for family functionality over style and, fifteen years later, is still serviceable. Being late May there is no smoke from the chimney and in fact the air conditioning is on. There are no children playing outside on the porch nor in the front or back yard where the swing set is motionless and no one sits at the aluminum patio tube furniture adjacent to the sliding glass door or fools with the gardening tools laying about, mostly because it is Tuesday during school hours. The flag in the southwest corner of the front yard near the bed of impatiens and next to the driveway is at full staff and wafting a bit, though the air is still enough to hear a phone ringing from inside the house. Robins and finches flit about the unpainted concrete birdbath.

Two overflowing plastic trash cans stand at the front curb, near the flagpole, waiting weekly pickup: there is no car or SUV in the driveway and closed garage doors make it uncertain if there is a vehicle parked within.

Sitting in the front seat of a Chevy Silverado in the adjacent driveway, engine off but keys in the ignition, it takes little effort to see over the shrubs, to observe the upper window, the only window at that level of the neighbor’s house, where a female walks past the un-curtained uncovered window. She walks neither slow nor with haste but with the purpose of doing what a woman alone in a house might be inclined to do, passing by every minute or so, sometimes every fifteen minutes. Sometimes an hour, or longer.


The Business Lunch

Waiting at the hostess station
like the proper businessmen they are,
the two suits exchange small talk
and are rewarded by being gifted
a table set among pillars and posts,
making visual monitoring by
surrounding diners problematic.

A forever-age-thirty-nine server
efficiently takes their order:
chicken parmesan for one,
grilled salmon for the other;
one drinks tea, the other just water.
Both are old school: clean-shaven,
shirts, ties, suit jackets;
one wears a tie clip and cufflinks
and carries a briefcase, one doesn’t.
The former signs with a fountain pen.

The shared mealtime is a
Punch and Judy show,
the businessman on the left
pointing and gesturing,
the other holding up charts and graphs.
Talk of “parallel paths” leaks out among
nods, smiles and controlled laughs
that punctuate lunch as if scripted.

Paperwork is shuffled, put away;
the most direct route
to the airport is agreed on:
standing, they shake hands.
Lunch is consumed in less than an hour,
plans and contracts finalized.
Meeting over.

The hostess smiles a wordless goodbye
as the sun only slightly tilts west.


The Tuesday Breakfast Special

1.
Ed sits at his accustomed booth
for the first time in months.
Trying to save a few bucks,
he hasn’t been eating out but notes
little has changed at The Greek’s,
least of all the burnt goat and feta
scent of breakfast specials.
How ya doin’? he greets Tanya,
his preferred greasy spoon waitress.
Just fair, she says, just fair.
Husband, kid problems? he asks
and she says No it’s just me.
Feel like I’m going to explode.
My heart’s too fast
and my blood pressure’s so high
the doctor wants to put me
in the hospital even without insurance.
Says I have neurological problems.
You know, a brain disorder.
It’s like I’m at warp speed and the rest
of the world is in a school zone.
I’m on valium and some other
medicine starts with a “c.”

Smiling, Ed does what he can:
Your hair is longer; it looks good.
Thank you, she says, I’m letting it grow
long in summer, short in winter. Ass backward.
Well, you look pretty, he says,
averting eyes dead from thirty years
serving cheap food for minimum wage
and now further drugged by relaxants.

Keeping up appearances is hard when
my husband’s been out of work since
the lumber yard went bust.
And what he makes plowing driveways
and mowing yards don’t help much
even with unemployment checks.
Then two of my kids moved out and that
broke my heart.
I tore up my bedroom the other night.
Trashed the wallpaper, shattered the
vanity mirror and don’t have a clue why.
Just because.

Leaving a two-dollar tip for a $6.75
three-egg bacon omelet Tuesday special
didn’t seem like it was gonna help much.

2.
Three months later, there are changes.

Tanya’s green eyes are clear and bright.
I’m off of valium now, she says,
setting down a menu and list of specials,
but I still take blood pressure meds.
My doctor made me take a week’s vacation
doing nothing, which helped a lot
but sure worried my regular customers.
Now that spring is here I can get
cheap therapy by gardening on off days.
Don’t need Medicare for fresh air.
Katie, my youngest, is moving back home
and knows she’ll have to pitch in.
With nice weather coming Steve’s
mowing lawns at thirty
houses and he is starting
to get a few businesses.
My head has slowed down
like normal brains,
or so they tell me.
I’m having a good day.
Today is a good day.
A good day, today.
Today.

3.
Time passes everywhere except in The Greek’s,
where three breakfast specials, one of which
is always an omelet variant, are posted
daily on a chalk board.  A disused ashtray
(no smoking in restaurants for years now)
of jellies, orange marmalade and apple butter,
sits on each table and booth with real and
artificial sweeteners and a ketchup bottle.
Thick coffee cups sit upside down in saucers,
awaiting service, and a battered newspaper
is available, missing the sports section
and with the crossword already filled out.

Tanya has not worked her regular shift
the last several times Ed ate there.
He asks her friend Kathi.
She’s okay, she only works Mondays,
Tuesdays and Fridays now but she’s doing good.
Really.

Funny thing about The Greek’s parking lot.
There are always more cars parked in it
than there are customers in the restaurant.
Some may park and walk next door to Wendy’s,
or go to the other side and shop the 7-Eleven.
The parking lot is nearly full. The greasy spoon
seems empty.

4.
Winter turns to spring…
Since smoking is banned in restaurants
young patrons catch a smoke outside
just as there are one or two obnoxious
cell phone users inside spewing loud artificial
conversation.  If they would throw in some sex,
Ed considers, it wouldn’t be so boring.
Retirees talk away their remaining time
at the larger six-top tables.
On this day during Memorial Day week, a time
to reflect, honor and commemorate, tiny flags
adorn tables and booths, stuck in miniature
glass vases of paper flowers. Some Greek, Macedonian,
Serbo-Croatian, U.S., French, and German.
One Confederate flag and a few Ed can’t identify.
It’s an international neighborhood.
Everyone’s lost someone in some war or another.

Tanya is gone, replaced by Opal, petite, but for an alcoholic
paunch fifty-ish, blue-eyed bright-haired blonde, her
ponytail pulled tight to accentuate
silvery earrings, a colored glass necklace,
too much makeup and red tortoise shell
prescription glasses perched on her head.
Snug black tee shirt and slacks, trendy
and youthful, but crow’s feet, taut neck lines
and a subservient, beat-down demeanor
confirm decades of waitressing and men
only she could love but anyone could attract.

Opal doesn’t know Ed’s usual order
nor has she paid her dues allowing baseball,
football or sex banter. Near the end of his meal
Opal leans slightly toward him—
Everything good?
Yes, perfect, he answers, having treated himself
to eggs benedict instead of the bacon-and-cheese
three-egg omelet special. Ed takes large bites,
overloading each forkful, quickly clearing the plate.

Opal sets the check by his newspaper with
her name and a smiley face in pink marker—
Need anything else today? she asks.


Brief Bio: One could say that Gene McCormick once scaled the Eiffel Tower in his bare feet to get a bird's-eye view of Marcel Proust's grave.

Tom Hatch- A Poem

Thinking Like a Deaf Blind Dog

I can't see anything

I can't hear anything

Only the feel of two

Paws hitting the ground 

At the same time

That I cannot see

Then the other two paws

That I cannot hear

the joints are sore

happiness then upon

My tail wags joints

Are there even in pain

Leading to a place

A gully or culvert

Where it is a sleepy hollow

That I will be found

Before I die alone

Which is ok my 

Tail I cannot control

Wags beyond the

Deaf and blindness

If it were me it would be stew

I am licking in the silent air alone

 

 

Tom paid his dues in the SoHo art scene way back when. He was awarded two NEA grants for sculpture back then. And taught at various colleges and universities in the NYC metro area in art (including Princeton and U of Penn. in Philly). He feels like a regular at The Camel Saloon and BoySlut. He has published at The Mind[less] Muse, Jellyfish Whispers, Napalm and Novocain, Dead Snakes and Pyrokinection among others. He has recently had a poem nominated for The Best on The Net. He lives in CT with a few farms up and down the road works in Manhattan. His train ride to and from NYC is his solace, study and den where it all begins and ends.

Dawnell Harrison- Three Poems

Unties

Love unties the dark nettles
Of the night as the twisted

Hours lose twined noise trailed
In the oak trees.

Love unbolts the locks
Of every heart beating its

Thump thump in the weary
Hours of a strung-out night.

Love unravels the strings
Of the soul in the brambled

Plenitude of an endlessly
Starry sky.




No sun shines

Luminescence cracks where
No sun shines.

Where no rivers run,
The waters of the soul pull in

Their tears.
Twilight shines behind my eyes

As the earth cries to be loved.
The earth is barren and without

In this wind-strewn night
Searching for its heart's sleeve
To bare its soul upon.




Roots and marrow

By the roots of the stars
And the marrow of the moon

All go quietly into the long
Silent night.

Sparrows do not stir and
The lake is like a sheet

Of glass as the indigo night
Lays down its transgressions

And opens its arms to cradle
All of those in need of its magic.



I have been published in over 100 magazines and journals including The Endicott Review, The Journal, Fowl Feathered Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Vox Poetica, The Tower Journal, Queen's Quarterly, and many others. 

Also, I have had 3 books of poetry published through reputable publishers titled Voyager, The maverick posse, and The fire behind my eyes.  Furthermore, I possess a BA from The University of Washington. 

Daniel Wilcox- Two Poems

The Last Libation

Jim Town, across the county line
Where many a poor Cheyenne
Emptied his dim future
In the short, sotted glass;

Nothing new of this watery fire,
The forked-tongue libation
Passed from the pallid men
Down to generations of the lost,

To those hunched at the rail-
Descendants of red men who
Counted coup with shining valor-
But these instead pour out their souled

Lives to Chief Bacchus of the bottle;
Restricted to behind the dark bars,
They shuffle the time worn cards,
Then slump, no longer ruling the plains.

But the Rez’s young girl, his cousin,
Only 12, copper-templed and kind,
With glorious raven hair, now
In the gathering Montana dusk

Tips on the dirt walk, sour breathed,
Staggers on the ‘warn’ path
Through Lame Deer village,
And passes down, then gone.

Says another tribe’s brave,
A leader in translation,
My heart is sick…

I will drink no more forever.


Previously published in Sentinel Poetry Online, United Kingdom, November 2007

Midnight Voyager

Past muggy midnight,

Working 7-11 on the late shift,

I’m the moonlighting student
Washing the wall-to-wall windows outside,

Pushing the strong pole up and down

In the fogged, moist

Huntington Beach night,

Then I go inside and stock shelves with the last

Of the cans--sweet peaches, chili and meat,
And wait on the handful of customers,

A trucker, two teen cruisers, and an elderly gent.

Later a friendly Mexican family comes in

With 5 rambunctious kids

Going who knows where at 3 A.M.,

No doubt journeying far.

While the kids scamper in lively dances

And the parents load up a large basket,

The door chime sounds

And a comely young woman strolls in,

Frilly skirt swaying;

She walks to the cooler in the back,

Side steps two running boys,

And returns to the counter

With an Orange Crush

Smiling up at me,

Where I’m reading “Recuerdo”

By Millay from my college text--

The girl leans forward on the counter,

Her green blouse like a palm-frond basket
In the market, the partially open scarf
Revealing her harvest,

Two soft mangoes, succulent skin.

She looks up, her soft eyes

Large and luminous;

I return her warm smile, then look away

To the permanent ‘Keys’

On the register;

Rejecting the easy way, the brief flush and rise,

Longing instead for the music
That moves the invisible spheres,
 

The endless, passionate ‘reel.’

No voyeur, I am a midnight voyager

Journeying toward another country

Like the Hebrews, longing for the hidden one.

 

Previously published in La Frente International Literary Magazine, France, November 2007 

Brief Bio:
Daniel Wilcox's wandering lines have appeared in many magazines including Word Riot, Recusant, Write Room, Mouse Tales Press, Camel Saloon, vox poetica, Mad Swirl, and Unlikely Stories IV.  Three large collections of his published poetry are in print: Dark Energy,Psalms, Yawps, and Howls, and selah river.  Before that, he hiked through Nebraska, Cal State University LongBeach (Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Palestine/Israel,Arizona...  Now he resides with his wife on the central coast of California.