Laura Grodin- Two Poems

The Lover

He's back now.

Torn from an inside tendon, gripping

a muscle memory that is almost forgotten.

Foreign on tastebuds, hinting at a scent

that is wrong, but familiar. Feeling him

burns away fingertips.

There will be no evidence. Curling white roads

bring hands to pelvis, sliding down sweet;

a bone barricade protecting what is ours.

Knuckles burn like stair steps up my side,

protruding a cryptic message that only he

and I can read by neon light.

There is a streetlight in the distance, hovering under

his pitch-blue sky. I’m reduced to embers, poking at moments

we shared on my skin. When he left, the marks faded,

a reverberation of what used to be. My tail-bone echoed

as he passed, hollow from absence, simmering

on midnight air.

I Have the Sweeter Tooth

Dip a finger in salt, and it burns.

An assault of sorts, seeping into pores

so small they might not exist. Folds of skin

sewing themselves together, a fingerprint of dunes

driven bright. I have the sweeter tooth, I dip my finger

in fire, let it blaze a saccharine sweet, melting a glazed brown,

pasting the hands that used to be castle clean. Clear the crevices

of your mind where you know how sugar tastes, where you're sure

there’s a soul, where you balance the blast of burning blisters to flesh.




Laura Grodin is a recent graduate of Adelphi University's MFA Program in Creative Writing. A California native, Laura now resides in Brooklyn, NY. Her poetry can be found in Dreams and Nightmares, Rufous City Review, and Brevity Poetry Review.

David S. Pointer- A Poem

       Grease Gun Central

The
video sex tape storage centers
ate up the remaining arable lands
but we still had great patina and
constant spin paint on most every-
thing else, yet Manuel just wanted
a little explosion proof water for his
kids as the fracking company tracked
payments to the legislature ignoring
H20 regulations letting profit centers
saddle up and ride backwards on the
world train wreck rodeo profit track


David S. Pointer is an American political poet. He also has the best daughters and neatest kitty cat. New work in The Southern Poetry Anthology Series, Volume V: Georgia, and a forthcoming broadside at “1/25” with Editor Craig Sernotti.

J.K. Durick- A Poem

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Literary Juice, Jellyfish Whispers, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review.

                    Fright

At first it’s the eyes that catch us

and hold us steady – as unblinking as truth,

and then their whispers start, fill the hush

with a certainty, the comfort of distance

protects them this time.

The discomfort fits us – like a child’s

topcoat, like a leg brace fits us, fills us

with stammer and slant, loses our place

and our voice, blurs the familiar with

the strange, fits dread to outcome,

leaves us alone in this crowded room.

There’s blame enough, a bruise or two,

a stalled life, a hesitancy we can’t explain,

the mystery, the history of our silence.

It’s always there, the eyes and small voices,

there, like the ghosts of our dead friends

who trail behind us to remind us

of what came before and what comes next.

Paul Tristram- A Poem

Worms

It was the soles that intrigued them.

The body had rotted away completely

apart from the bones.

And the bones had nothing to offer

since they had already been

hollowed out.

Just cold, empty hard things

they happened to bump into while

travelling through the wet earth.

It was the soles that intrigued them.

The clothes had rotted away completely

apart from the buttons.

And the buttons had nothing to offer

since they were no longer

attached to a body.

Just cold, smooth hard things

they happened to bump into while

travelling through the wet earth.

It was the soles that intrigued them.

The boot leather had gone completely

apart from the rubber soles.

And the soles were soft and warm

and the worms worked hard

at hollowing them out.

They would make nice, pleasant tunnels

to go through while

travelling through the wet earth.

Published in Decanto, 14^th Issue, December 2004

Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and sketches published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.

BZ Niditch- Two Poems

A SCHOOL DAY'S MATE

No loss in a voyage
across the pond
in these sun-script
reciprocal letters
of your childhood friend
who has exiled himself
away unexpectedly,
who now may be feeling
like any Caliban
who avoided death
in so many savage situations
yet I'm being overwhelmed
here on the rocks
of this chilling ocean
my mind racing
between continents
when we sprinted
along the dark cold sea
in regattas
on the expanse of beaches
harboring home memories
when reaching
this narrowing waterfront,
throwing pebbles
to the motionless shore,
wanting to recover
our past adolescence
wanting again
to be spontaneous
with a bright
school day's mate
who envisions
our vagary of life's reunion
by early Spring,
yet covering time
from unthinkable
unlocked distances
in countless encounters
with our orange sailboat
that we try to repair
you name"The Poet"
after going underwater
swimming cautiously
in the language
of these shining waves.



ON PLAYING THE FIELD

You courted her
in a bruised heat
during that airless
long stormy summer
swaying in shadows
over a sunshine dawn
with many back handed
sides of a racquet ball,
from the first early
serve in the morning
of rotten regrets
to the last play
of more than words,
she was an opponent
without a match
in her profession
for a good sport
like yourself,
when we circled
our foreign bodies
in fiery pursuit on grounds
and it was only another
naked pick up of chance
when the last stroke
of the semi final
she aims too low
and almost hits me
in a private place
away from her eye
when we realize
the greater
last set point
of our  painful exploits
has nothing
worth being off the charts
and we put an end
to our mating game.

Alan Catlin- Three Poems

Midnight Cowboy

What was he thinking, really?

This celeb doctor drawn to

tropic island, hurricane wasteland,

disaster area. Expressed motive was

for, “Humanitarian Reasons” though

his I-phone blogs, with pictures,

suggested otherwise, suggested

something like extreme human

misery slumming, getting down

and dirty with the natives and their

open wounds, suppurating sores,

swollen bellies, all nearly naked 

and pestered by horse flies and

mosquitoes, dysentery and disease.

Somehow he neglected, forgot?,

to bring his black bag, medicinal

remedies, tools of his trade.

Pressed into actual service, his only

instrument for dire amputations,

a hacksaw, aspirin for anesthesia,

placebos for everything else.

Suddenly, his blog posts became

less frequent, less self-important, 

no pictures for: typhus, cholera, dengue.

General power failure, cell towers

down, no signals come in or go out;

no reception, nothing.  In the thick

of it all, what to do? Where to begin?

Women on the Edge of Time

Relief work wasn’t supposed to be

like this: no social worker class,

textbook, field research, prepares you

for a land beyond hope, without moral law,

recourse or redress.  Multiple rape victims

freaking out seeing on-the-loose abusers;

all still threatening, smug, recharged and ready.

Field notes indicate female subjects are

often totally hysterical, inconsolable, self-destructive.

No drugs to bring them down, no palliative care.

Nothing to mollify in this place where no one

was ever meant to be. After initial observations,

one dead the next day. Another the day after.

How could anyone understand such pain?

Hell in a Very Small Place

                                    “If you put in enough hours in bars, sooner or later you get

                                    to hear every imaginable kind of bullshit.” C.K. Williams

                                                “We weren’t in the position to disobey

                                                a direct order. None of us were.

Not in the field.  And there was nothing

ambiguous about the order either,

‘Kill everything that moved.’

Everything meant everything, son.

You think My Lai was an aberration?

Hell, that shit happened, like all the time,

Man, every day.  Saw it with my own

two eyes. You send out a bunch of

nineteen and twenty year old, fresh-from-

basic, sacred shitless kids, with only one

thought left over in their minds from six

or eight weeks intensive training in hell

and that’s ‘Kill Kill Kill’, sure as shit, when

the opportunity arose, yeah, they killed

everything that moved. It’s not like there is

a whole lot of time for critical thinking

when some senior guy in the squad starts free

firing into a Ville and the first Looie flips

his Bic and all of a sudden everything’s going

Burn Baby Burn ….well, you get the picture;

“Platoon” without the sad music.

Later on, you know, when guys had some

time to like absorb what had come down, 

to really think about shit, they felt like remorse,

and got all crazy and shit, only natural,

I guess. Made for some really bad mojo in

the squad that’s for sure.  Lot of those guys

didn’t make it. I’m not saying they got fragged

and shit, but, like who checks which direction

the fatal bullets are coming from, who like really

cares? Can’t prove dick, anyway. Lot of guys

that made it out, they adjusted, man.

They did their job and later on, if they cracked up,

well, that’s not the Army’s problem, is it?

Not my problem neither.  To be honest with you,

I kind of liked it: no rules, no regulations and

all the ammo you’d ever need; it doesn’t get

any better than that.”

Bryan Murphy- A Poem

Italian Spring

Why can’t every day be like this?
11 April 2006:
a mass media manipulator jerked from office;
the Mafia’s main man escorted into gaol.

Why can’t every Spring be like this?
A fresh wind in Italy, 2006.
Immunity and impunity get stripped away
from the feet of fixed footballers,
the G-strings of showgirls,
the cardboard crowns of would-be kings,
& politicos, pararazzi, paedopriests,
TV anchors, radio rectum-rinsers, sporting cheats:
all the pillars of the rotting establishment.

Who does not remember 9 July 2006?
Zidane head-butts Materazzi. Marco collapses,
Italy stands firm
to win the shoot-out lottery.
Cannavaro lifts the Cup. Champions of the world.
The system works!
Spring is over.

In February 2013, that shrivelled season
sends up shoots
from seven years of underground itch.
Power’s pendulum swings back toward the pits;
Parliament pulsates with people’s pressure.
Change warms the alpine air.
The future is open:
fifteen whole months
until the next World Cup.

Bryan Murphy is an Anglo-Irish globetrotter. He recently retired from a job within the United Nations system and now divides his time among England, Italy, the wider world and cyberspace. He is the author of Postcards From Italy, Murder By Suicide, Heresy, Linehan’s Trip and Goodbye, Padania, and welcomes visitors at: http://www.bryanmurphy.eu

Felino A. Soriano- Poetry

from Quintet Dialogues: translating introspection

Of drums

˟14˟

thinking then when again

tasked into the taking hand of

reflectional catching

what is torn from the throwing of the self

often returns in the duality of praise (thought)

or regret (thought) and a mirror of

motion leads into a status of sorrow or

flowering smell leaving footsteps

across the forehead of the personal

inflection

˟15˟

of the appearance of silence

a

            space

                                    endeavors

                        or

                                                            pulls purposes tallies tasks

engages with what engrains and the autonomy of knowing

examines in the possibility of language’s

                                                renewing                     echoes

˟16˟

an excitement slides

in the impulses of triggering rhythms

individualizing each moving idea

motivating such hands and their

object-touch interacting solace

Felino A. Soriano’s most recent collection of poetry is Extolment in the praising exhalation of jazz (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2013).  He publishes the online endeavors Counterexample Poetics and Differentia Press. His work finds foundation in philosophical studies and connection to various idioms of jazz music. He lives in California with his wife and family and is the director of supported living and independent living programs providing supports to adults with developmental disabilities.  For further information, please visit www.felinoasoriano.info.

Tom Hatch- A Poem

All American Girl

Sells Avon (Avon Calling)

Thinking of fruit and vegetable stands 

Apple pie out doors

Garden dinner party ferns

Table and chairs at tea

An all American girl

Church in the AM 

Target practice at noon 

Selling Avon and ammo

Masquera and munitions

All in the same door bell ring

They want to take God We Trust

Off the dollar bills

I'll engrave it on my 45

And preach it selling Avon

To be beautiful in his second coming

Waving arms here I am I love 

You Jesus Avon told me so

Don't come too soon 

My 45 will be here in two

Days and I really want to shoot something

Leeroy Berlin- Two Poems

today is the day i ran out of ibuprofen

there's a joy in discovery

a child finds his first four-leaf clover

the first view of a distant place

through a small lens

close encounters with breasts and

an alcoholic finding one liter bottles of filipino beer for a dollar each

a ten in his pocket

and the last pill in the bottle

the morning after.

she's got impeccable timing

i press play and

a voice

not unlike mine

speaks out of the little

box.  Pithy lines

and senses half-remembered from

the aftermath of a case of something dark.

when the phone rings

i answer too quickly

in one ear her voice says hello

in the other my voice insults

her taste in music and 

how she makes me smile

in between my ears there's

swearing

one ear is being asked what's going on

the other's given up in confusion.

the phone slips through my fingers

as both my hands scramble

the stop button jams

my snide sentiments 

keep betraying me

so i throw the recorder through the window

which is closed--it’s january

the shattering overwhelms

her voice from the phone on the ground

hello? what's going on?  what the hell?

this is why i

don't write love poems.

i pick up the phone.

sorry, tv was on too loud.

What's up?

 

 

Bio:  Leeroy Berlin was not, in fact, dropped on his head as a child.  There is likely some other explanation for his decision to write poetry.  You can find links to his work published in a number of online poetry magazines at his website: leeroyberlin.com