Yesterday I ate ten dollars’ worth of salad. Here is how it happened: My wife was at her book club And, recalling those Teacher appreciation lunches They used to throw for us, Stylish young parents in Black Cadillac SUVs— Exotic salads, all manner of Rice and pasta, marinated vegetables, Olives, oregano, oil and vinegar— I betook myself to an affluent market Near our upscale shopping mall, Passing the hot bar, pizza and sushi, And started filling my biodegradable box With commingled delicacy. Next to me were three men about 50, Business casual, Speaking a European language I did not recognize: Strange place for a power lunch. I thought to myself: There’s a metaphor here someplace; If you wait, it will emerge.
They charge by the pound. Embarrassed by my excess, I took some home. Julie was coming over With her young, two kids With different stories. I shared with her kale greens In a balsamic vinaigrette.
Cairns: Rye, New Hampshire July 2015
Places are prompts So I always bring paper and pen To Odiorne Point.
From a distance The cairns look like people. Up close, some are: Children, rock upon rock, Add to the gallery, Silhouettes, mist rising, Burned off the promontory. Some are engineered, like pyramids. On this one a little girl, maybe four, Places a third rock atop a second: It is enough, Trail markers not needed, a holy site.
Moments past low tide, Shimmering bands of water inch landward. I walk back across the gravel beach To where my grandsons look for crabs. Another family approaches. Someone says, “Oh, I do hope the tide comes in.” It has every day So far.
In The Days Following Hurricane Katrina: August 2005
We sit before cable TV In sick, entranced numbness; Cathode ray exudes an unspeakable pain. A chapter in our lives Washed over by waters toxic with despair: We hid from a storm there once, A third of a lifetime ago. Now, with anger and revulsion, Love and hope, We grieve for the losses of friends, For the place where our children were young.
Robert Demaree is the author of four book-length collections of poems, including Other Ladders published in 2017 by Beech River Books. His poems have received first place in competitions sponsored by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire and the Burlington Writers Club. He is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Bob’s poems have appeared in over 150 periodicals including Cold Mountain Review and Louisville Review.
You can find more of Bob’s poems here on Ink Pantry.
She finally moved from Fukushima fled its failed, toxic nuclear plant I wasn’t close to her, don’t want to be close to her
I get nervous when she moves toward me, arms wide with a smile unnaturally bright like the ladies who painted radium on watch dials and licked their brushes to keep them pointy
I don’t want to love her don’t want to be inside her No means no
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. His new poetry collection was published in 2019, The Arrest of Mr Kissy Face. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.
More work from Mitch, including his Inky Interview here.
Ancient stump with brown pine needles sprinkled on the forest floor. No sign of the trunk and canopy that was once rooted Through and by this humble stump. Further ahead, a hickory stands like granite. Around its crooked and askew trunk winds a vine, Embracing the hickory. The vine is splayed, its fingers fly out Like the digits of a child touching the air. To my left, a white pine, the monarch of trees, Massive and straight and soaring to untold and mythical heights. Directly in front of me, two trees, Soldered together like conjoint twins. Are they/is it one tree Or two? Do they nourish each other? Sprinkling the forest floor, White flowers as delicate as spiderwebs. Lazy in the sun that bleaches the air. The breeze is gentling, Touching my skin like a breath.
Christopher Johnson is a writer based in the Chicago area. He’s been a merchant seaman, a high school English teacher, a corporate communications writer, a textbook editor, an educational consultant, and a free-lance writer. He’s published short stories, articles, and essays in The Progressive, Snowy Egret, Earth Island Journal, Chicago Wilderness, American Forests, Chicago Life, Across the Margin, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Blue Lake Review, The Literary Yard, Scarlet Leaf Review, Spillwords Press, Fiction on the Web, Sweet Tree Review, and other journals and magazines. In 2006, the University of New Hampshire Press published his book, This Grand and Magnificent Place: The Wilderness Heritage of the White Mountains. His second book, which he co-authored with a prominent New Hampshire forester named David Govatski, was Forests for the People: The Story of America’s Eastern National Forests, published by Island Press in 2013.
Our children, Who art of future generations, May your lives be blessed, Your dreams fulfilled, Your hearts content for now and ever after. Forgive us our socio-political mistakes and the work it will require of you, As we must forgive our own parents and previous generations. Do not be led into the temptations of hatred and hypocrisy, But deliver yourselves from the paths of injustice and inequity. For your children’s kingdom Depends upon what you leave to them.
Revealing
The life I thought I’d have, But wasn’t it at all, Became as much a surprise to me As tulips in the fall,
That odd expectancy Of unanticipated pregnancy. Or, life bled from a story As from humanity’s great vein.
A blanket was unfolded To find, instead, a tapestry. And, I didn’t so much unfold it, As stop preventing it being opened.
Torn Photo Legacies
Towards the end, You were tearing up photos When we came to visit you, Bring you chicken from your favourite restaurant, Brew you coffee in the machine We gave you for Christmas.
We asked you why you tore them. You had a guilty look, but a realistic reply. “No one wants them. I don’t have anyone left.” It was true. What were we to you? Family, yes, in a sense – but not relatives. We don’t know anyone Who knew who you once knew.
But, then again, Breaking bread with you Alongside our children Was always more important Than whomever you once Broke bread with.
Mourning the Future
Children cry for many reasons That adults ponder for many seasons As they cry too To understand The tears of babes, The punishments of man.
Freshly birthed, departed From all that’s known, unaware of all that’s started The healthiest Newborn cries, As mournfully as a parent Who sees their grown child die.
Parents and children are separated Because of politicians who have long loved to hate The poor, Vulnerable, and innocent, While inculcating Policies of ignorance.
Yet crying fails us. Or does it? It may not solve what ails us. But it expresses A need, For acknowledgment, Making demands for a future we must heed.
Samantha Terrell is an American poet whose work emphasizes social justice and emotional integrity. Her poetry has been published in a variety of chapbooks and journals, including: Algebra of Owls, Dissident Voice, Dove Tales by Writing for Peace, the Ebola chapbook by West Chester University (PA), Knot Magazine, Lucky Jefferson, Peeking Cat Poetry, Poetry Quarterly and others. Raised in the American Midwest, Samantha and her family now reside in Upstate New York.
True, back then, he was a foolish fellow – mind lost in mazes, avant garde for fame. The dawn he heard those warblers singing in the willow wood ended his foppish ways.
He let his lyrics amble, breathed the songs within the trees, came to the river bank. The pipes of Pan unstrung his childhood pages. He saw Ratty and timorous Mole rowing.
He waved to them. Badger, Badger, they called. Badger he became. A life of black and white.
The Fencers
His habits build a fence with hammer and nail, unplugged rhythms gives pulse to purpose. He pins the wood as if it were untamed. a greening thirst rooted in earth. His son thinks him daft, hungers for things electric. Time is money, he mutters to himself, scoffing the bara brith his mum had made. Cake defeats him. Binds the beat of his heart.
Matins
The stoop of cloud broods a hunchbacked cumulus. Work beckons.
Slowly drying she switches on another humming light
and mumbles along flowery margins tying curtains that thread
to rituals of waking with tea and toast and thick cut marmalade.
Repeating and rehearsing and repeating will map the muddle of intentions
but she swims the waves with mermaids long after the breakfast hour.
Phil Wood studied English Literature at Aberystwyth University. He has worked in statistics, shipping, and a biscuit factory. His writing can be found in various publications, most recently in: Fly on the Wall Press (Issue 6), Ink Sweat and Tears, Poetry in Public, Poetry Shed, Allegro.
She stood naked at the hotel window God stuck to the roof of her mouth the dying bury the dead while Stukas dive-bomb overhead remembering mid-morning along the banks of the Rhine Hunnish maidens sleep-dancing while Czechoslovakia re-disappears I told you- there’s no point in waiting for me- & you, you had red eyes like a Japanese sunrise Tanks stuck in the snow
It used to be that when the phone rang, it was you and if it didn’t ring, well, I knew it wasn’t you at all
Sharing oilcakes in Sarajevo- Elenita, aren’t you a little bit drunk? tiny angels swirling- how many close calls can one soul have? (I was hoping you would know) Chewing on coffee grounds- nothing goes to waste out here seems like the world was just going through the motions I love you when you sing that song it lets me pretend it really hasn’t been that long
Yelena, years ago I should have known you You are an exception even to the exception I’m sorry, she whispered again, one thousand summers I’ll wait ”Well, DON’T!!!,” I yelled “I have always loved you,” she reminded me, “Baby, you’re white like snow, I’m white like a cloud …..I will never stop smiling on you.”
Count to One
Don’t wanna walk past your house because you might just be home maybe I send my drone, just to check things out- I can tell when you’re not in town and it makes this city sadder your songs have become my songs can’t un-ring the bell, can’t send ‘em back you got me like an angel coming down like hell it’s been so long since I’ve lost touch One of these days, I’m going to take your picture down You know your love is a morning glory at midnight
Watching the rain glow I’m all brokenhearted since the day we started making eyes I’m so broke down, mixed up since the day we met up meeting eyes And it starts all over again tomorrow everything that was already over yesterday The nights get so strange when memories rearrange I’m gonna tear down all the stars for reminding me- So slow & suddenly
Getting time for a new star well, as long as I’m staring off into space- bouncing and balancing between Satellites Jumping off the deep ends of ships all headed further East, upward and onward unto Tibet to settle a debt with my old mind fly out to Berlin with a new kind A strange day started in a strange way Now I know the next time I live a life every-time I close my eyes I’m gonna see the light and everyday you know We lovers of the soul
Past Perfect
And for the first time makes me wish I had a soul to pray for- must have been that wine at 5 this morning- must have been because I knew you were leaving for the coast this evening- Catching a train to a star, I know you are
but all men unfaithful and all children ungrateful
I’m thinking you’ll make out alright in your new life you’re just past…you’re just past perfect makes me for the first time wish I had a soul to pray with- So then I could pray for your safe return
Edge of Never
Starting at the beginning will ever do any good lemme tell ya, honey we were spending too much time insane but just not doing it together cuts and bruises and chipped teeth to boot, I fired you off a letter from the Maricopa Station and it showed in the dream I had of you in Phoenix I had to move down in-to the country just to try to shake you off that morning, I woke up with a letter from you on my bed your letters always smell like the beach I mean, not the beach, but the sand in the wind when it’s in your hair, on the beach-
your handwriting burned on me like a gloomy humid sun I replied in Cheyenne on my way drifting North I found the Continental Divide a proper description of us- why, I had to leave the country just to try to shake you off a bit Vancouver nights by the Pacific had me wondering & wandering again so I slid back down the coast and with all my great timing, I missed my connection and did not get to see you So the arc took me back out to the desert once again this time, your letter was waiting for me and me, I was absolutely beaming
I slept with the photo you sent me I lit tiny fires in my afternoon room and I spent a mighty long time in that haze all the lights went foggy and then one early evening the very moment I began to miss you less- you called “I’m sorry for being sad…I’m feeling better now…”
I been back & forth, across this galaxy oh, that very very first night we met…. I really found my new love… I guess that was our naïveté but I still like to think about it sometimes oh, and my, how from time to time I wish I hadn’t burned all your letters, yknow well, not all of them…I still have the first note still sandy breeze mademoiselle, even to this day.
Stars Burnt
Stars burnt too close to the sun clouds looking to raise a little dust the snow in summer has no place to fall just like when you’ve no words & I’m the number you call you’re like a full moon at high noon I spent the whole season swimming in your room… a ghost looking for a little action, I know the feeling I’m not begging, but I’m certainly kneeling
Steal me some roses from a neighbour’s side-yard I don’t mind the thorns, baby when I’m crushing so hard
Stars so dirty, they turn straight to ice clouds act so innocent when their lightning strike twice and all their sleet, just can’t wait for fall you’ve no more colours, only my number to call must have been some kind of eclipse when you brushed passed my lips
So go steal me some roses I don’t care whose yard no, I can’t push you back when you come on so hard
Christian Garduno lives and writes along the South Texas coast, balancing between Forensic Files and Moscow Mules.
Straddling a divide between snafu and turmoil, We dare to risk lessons on these people. Ducking ambush, fierce and endless, We kick doors and search in frustration. Then race the moon to new vistas, Where we counsel and seed hope with promise. Amid chaos we coach, build visions, And endure where insanity reigns. What epic duty remains to carry this mission to fruition, A day, a fortnight, a year or more? How we ache to move out with character and honor. We’ve sowed this land with spirit, compassion, and blood. Oh, how we yearn, on the wings of the morning, to go home.
Fred Miller is a Californian writer. His first poem was selected by Constance Hunting, the New England Poet Laureate in 2003. Over fifty of his poems and stories have been published around the world.
I asked Princess Di to dance She was biking across the heath in a glum mood
wearing an expression that might have suited Thomas Hardy
In fact, she would have taken up my offer She would have danced with me Who knows what else she might have done? what we would have done together
But a tornado had blown down Windsor Castle and she had to hurry back to make repairs
I saw a trowel in her bicycle basket caked with cement I knew that besides being a princess she had many other skills and here was still more evidence
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, is based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and Nook, or as a print edition. His new poetry collection was published in 2019, The Arrest of Mr Kissy Face. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.
I live way out. It gets real quiet. Little random adjust- ments have been made to keep me there, & filmed in
one continuous shot. People in these small municipalities often pass the time in strange mixes of activities — juggling
chain saws while wearing a two-piece bathing suit is a not unusual example. The culture can be different even when it
stays the same. This book was company for me; but the suits I wear when I work in major cities would cause division here.
The Pound Cantos: CENTO V
Sound drifts in the evening haze, North wind nips on the bough; & in small house by town’s edge—
slung like an ox in smith’s sling— now was wine-trunk here stripped, here made to stand, stilling the ill
beat music. A young man walks, grave incessu, at church with galleried porch, drinking the tone
of things. Brown-yellow wood, & the no-color plaster, all flat on the ground now, making mock of
the inky faithful. When you take it, give me a slice. A poet’s ending.
J7 on the selection list
Today, again, it is The Supremes who propel me into the morning. An interwoven medley, Love Child & Reflections, no reason for that particular pairing — it’s just the way of things, the past, un- bidden, rising up to push the hidden jukebox of the mind along.
The doors
Everything has continuity; though the light changes shapes & some things resonate with memory whilst others stay silent in the hand. Each has a number.
*
Grasp as in within. With- out. The door open, the doors closed. The way picked through. The detritus is a picked- over poem. Number unencumbered, the writing not the same.
*
To find the expression first design the primer. Sequence. Consensus. Homogenous percentage.
*
There are things scattered around the door. Pieces of glass in different colours, paper wasted since the writing’s all the same. A couple of statues, one stained with blood. Bowler hats piled up on top of one another.
*
Two doors beyond.
*
Everything might be remembered in time but it’s the linkages & the lack of space to keep them near that make it difficult.
*
Memory is not linear. Straight lines are for planning a future where you write yourself preliminary notes & leave them in strategic places. So that, whenever it is you arrive at where you were going you can open them up & see what was penned, then compare it with what actually hap- pened along the way.
*
Everything has contiguity; though the night changes shades & some things emanate from memory whilst others shape themselves within the hand. None has a number greater than one.
Visual & text poems by Mark Young have appeared recently in several journals including Indefinite Space, E·ratio, X-Peri, Word for/Word, & Futures Trading.
Mark Young lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia, & has been publishing poetry since 1959. He is the author of over fifty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, & art history. His work has been widely anthologized, & his essays & poetry translated into a number of languages. His most recent books are a collection of visual pieces, The Comedians, from Stale Objects de Press; turning to drones, from Concrete Mist Press; & turpentine from Luna Bisonte Prods.
I lost my reason And my will And my books And my children And the woman I love and still I never gained
Insight
No Victor
Prostrate in the bed we used to share On a Sunday night Staring at all the nothing And thinking about how swell life was For those too brief interludes Between the disasters When you would hold me so close And I could feel your heart beat
Wondering what you’re doing now Since you broke my heart in two And disappeared with my light And my hope
Just then the phone rings Just like it used to When you’d make your “Sorry I’m calling so late” Phone calls
My heart mends for a moment And I answer it Not knowing what I will say But screaming I Love You I need your voice In my mind As my pulse pounds In my ears
I answer the phone And when the man on the line Asks to speak to Victor I tell him he has the wrong number Because there is definitely no victor here
And there never will be
Poem # 226
Just as I was ready for her – Her feet upon my rug, Her body in my bed, Her coffee smells in my nose, The way her upper lip looks when she sips;
Her positivity, her proclivities, Her anger when drunk, Her endless enigmas…
Just as I was ready for her She was not ready for me In spite of how long We both waited
So here’s another poem about that.
A Plucked Flower
I refuse to be a plucked flower That is pulled from the ground, Clipped, sprayed to look shiny And put in a bouquet or garland
With the others.
There is all over the world
There is all over the world, but I live here. There are these millions of women everywhere, but here I am with you. And I have this job, and I raise these kids, and I eat this food you place before me.
I come and I go with each tide of chance, every ripple of circumstance.
