In our chapel at Golden Pines, Amber light through stained glass, Across the burgundy cushions, Greying heads, hip and knee replacements, A new organ fills the room: Bach, Widor’s toccata, Three manuals, hundreds of stops. Digital, no pipes, which means to some It is not real. Oh, but is it— The swells, crescendos, The noble trumpet of the Prince of Denmark’s March. It replaces the kind of organ You used to hear in cafeterias, Playing for the Civitans. Our friend explains, improvises for us; Keys change. How many would be so bold As to put on display the skills Of a life’s work, now Compromised by time. It is marvellous, we think, in every way. At last we have at Golden Pines An instrument fit for a sanctuary, For a service of last rites.
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.
Must be my lucky day. Look what I found on the sidewalk in a small Midwestern town at the turn of the 21st century. It’s almost midnight. The one street light is swinging like a pendulum. I saw it gleaming through the cracks. I just had to kneel down and pick it up.
Well so what. My find is not helping my car any. It’s as dead as a pair of twos in a poker game. And a mile back there on the road some place. And I can’t afford to pay for a roof over my head. But that’s my worry, not yours.
Have you guessed it yet? Red roses in a white wine bottle? Iron Maiden CD in a medicine cabinet? Scheherazade on a shingle? Shakespeare, vestal virgins or leopards? Take my advice and forget about it.
Is it a gleam, a glitter, in an otherwise dead block of cement? Does it remind me of someone? Do I break into a little song? And dance with my own shadow?
And now it’s starting to rain. It dribbles down my chin. The wind is brisk and repulsive. The people are all indoors, in bed, with the lights out.
So I’m under an awning, with my coat wrapped around me, head on a stoop. body curled up like a snail’s.
Have you guessed it yet? It’s nothing really. But you knew that all along.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in the Roanoke Review, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.
A roller of fat cigars, the hefty guy whose arms are inked with devils and angels, short-skirted women showing enough leg to start the dogs barking, and an old lady selling flowers – I have ignored them all just to be with you.
A shop window advertising 47 ice-cream flavors, a pig with two heads or maybe two pigs with a head apiece, blind kids playing baseball, a construction site, a barbershop quartet – I was in such a hurry, I noticed none of these.
Then you have to ask me how my never-wavering concentration on the matter in hand enabled me to include, for poetic purposes, all these things I bypassed, took no notice of.
That’s a good question. Luckily, on my journey, I avoided all good questions. That’s why I’m here.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in the Roanoke Review, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.
The first two arrows that pierce my orbs through fluttering lashes, too loath to unfold, are cerulean fragments that, unhampered, probe my naked window every cloudless morn.
My wavelengths, attuned, respond with a flow of rippling images that W. James had called the stream of consciousness, but in a non-literary world: a bluebell basking in the shade of a blade, a petal floating on the sapphire of a lake, a ripple or two agitating my boat, whose oars are drunk with foam and salt, a cyan mist inhabiting a myth, a pair of eyes whose blueness persists to compete with skies’, bluebells’, and mists’
Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.
The light has gone out in your heart. It’s not the bulb. It is still steady with kisses and hugs.
After years of constant use. the wiring is frayed at the source. Wire nuts of romance have been loosened.
It’s time for an overhaul.
This is to be done carefully. The electricity shut down. A new love cord installed. Secured with masking tape. Retighten the nuts and slowly connect the lost circuit.
R. Gerry Fabian is a retired English instructor. He has been publishing poetry since 1972 in various poetry magazines. He is the editor of Raw Dog Press. He has published two poetry books, Parallels and Coming Out Of The Atlantic. His novels, Memphis Masquerade, Getting Lucky (The Story) and Seventh Sense are available from Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble. He is currently working on his fourth novel, Ghost Girl.
I watch from under The shade of the fly-over. The ring road squeezes the city Into prolapse.
The sky closes for business And the clouds fold over, Like a restless sleeper’s duvet. A sun-flare splits the grey fade Of the post-rush hour queue.
I don’t think that the commuters Can see the heard approaching.
A hot breeze whispers Through skeletal trees. I can see the horses racing Up the dual carriageway.
The Ikea sign is melting, and Flaming hooves are pounding Over the blackened bones Of roadkill and exhaust pipes.
The harras rages Silently Through the heat-haze shimmer. Manes are ablaze.
With unstable diamond eyes And the stars in their teeth, They unleash Beautiful incineration On to the idle traffic.
Flashes of orange and red caress Idle wing mirrors. I see the fire-heard Race through the barrier and Leap across the fly-over.
Mirrored windows kiss The glare of a new Temporary sun. There will be no hard-shoulder To cry on this evening.
One day I will hit the accelerator, and catch up with the stampede. I will fly Like Pegasus on fire. The ring road will collapse Into the creases of the sky.
Colin Gardiner lives in Coventry. He writes short stories and poems and has been published by The Ekphrastic Review and the Creative Writing Leicester blog. He is currently studying a Masters in Creative Writing at Leicester University. More of his work can be read here
I cross the crowded streets, my mind congested with thoughts, get startled by myriads of complacent looks that are painted on faces like gilded books.
The topography of miens remains intact. An imbecile look adheres like a mask, unruffled by grief, privations, and crime.
A smile trickles from each flaccid mouth, too sugary for viewers with embittered hearts who lost their wholeness to a ravishing war.
Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a Ph.D. on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in multiple venues including Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, The Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.
My
name is Jull Soares and I am a bastard. This is not a particular
opinion that I, or anyone else that I’m aware of, has placed on me.
It is objective truth. My mother was an unlicensed sex worker and
neither she or I have any inkling of who fathered me, although a
couple of gringos are among the suspects.
There
is nothing more painful than longing for things that never were. Many
of my friends grew up with fathers and when I was young, I was very
jealous. However, based on what I’ve witnessed in films and in real
life, it doesn’t seem that I missed out on much. If you are
loved—it doesn’t matter by whom or how many—you’ll be fine as
long as you feel worthy of being loved.
I am old now, but I do not think that I fear death. Sometimes I get upset that while I am rotting in the dirt others will be drinking beer and dancing, or lying on a beach with closed eyes, caressed by the sun. My love of history has been an enormous help in smothering my panic of not being alive.
Ever since I was a child, I’ve adored hearing city elders tell stories about Cartagena. How my ancestors fought and killed the Spanish invader Juan de la Cosa when he tried to steal a 132 pound golden porcupine from our Sinu temple. And how we citizens repelled an attack of the English Armada that included George Washington’s half brother Lawrence. Or when the great North American female matador, Patricia McCormick, one of the finest bullfighters of her time, slew a bull at the beloved Circo Teatro. Streaked in blood, she knelt by the animal she just killed and stroked its head while screaming out, “I love this brave bull!”
I
can accept and enjoy that all these events took place without my
being alive to witness them, so why should I regret events I will be
unable to experience after I die? I have come to believe that when we
die, we return to wherever we were the year before our birth. As I
was born in 1959, I will simply return to whatever I was doing in
1958 and that’s where I will be for eternity. There seems to be
very few second chances in life and I suspect the same will be true
in death.
I
like lying on this ledge, becoming part of this glorious mural. I
feel as if I’m a horizontal recruiter enlisting pedestrians to take
some time outs during the day and not to fear exposing themself in
public. Often kids, mostly teenagers, come over and tease me that I
look dead when they shake or kick me into awakening. I can appreciate
their concern or forgive their mockery, but I don’t like it when
they pee in a wine bottle and try to force me to drink. Or pour it
over me while I sleep.
Sleeping in public can give you interesting insights into human nature. It’s been my experience that the good are pretty evenly matched with the bad, although it does tip a bit more in favour of the positive. Many people think I’m just a homeless misfit and don’t realize I’m actually giving them a chance to join me in creating a temporary public family. Compassion and cruelty is what I frequently dream about while I sleep on this beautiful ledge, and is what I often wake up to.
Since
I was a child, I’ve always hated shoes. Most men like to appear
tough. If a person really wants to be tough it must start with their
feet. Our ancestors probably went tens of thousands of years
travelling in their bare feet—tough, grizzled, calloused—but not
indifferent. Growing up without family except for my mother, I don’t
think of being shoeless as a sign of poverty. I am walking in the
footsteps of my ancestors where each step I take is headed in the
direction of a family reunion. The soles of my naked feet scrape
along the same paths where the souls of my forebears once walked.
Please forgive my clumsy attempt at poetic wordplay, but it is a holy
trail.
A human head should always be cradled. That is why I always carry a pillow in my pouch. A good pillow allows you to dream in colour. My pillow is very old and even when I wash it has a distinctly peculiar smell to it. That’s because of the many beautiful dreams and disturbing nightmares burrowed inside it. My sweat and tears puddle into the stains of my life. A kind European visitor once told me I should consider my pillow as a work of textile art. I’m not sure what that means, but I like how it sounds.
It is a pillow almost as old as me. My mother made it for me when I was still “shitting yellow” as she used to like to say in her colourful way of labelling me a baby. Each day I ensconce myself into this bright yellow mural, beneath a stunning young woman with legs spread, as if birthing me onto this ledge.
Freedom
is isolation. Slavery is the obliteration of isolation. I abhor
flophouses, government housing and charitable hostels. Once you lose
your ability to desire isolation, you become a slave. Creativity can
only flourish in silence and solitude. If I was in some kind of
forced shelter do you think I would be writing in this notebook and
accompanying these words with images torn from magazines, newspapers
and catalogues? The European woman who told me my pillow was textile
art also said that I have a collagist mentality when I showed her a
few of my notebooks.
Do not pity me as homeless. Celebrate me as one who possesses the special gift of being able to live alone. Sometimes I am forced to enter the dark doors of slavery, but I maintain the wherewithal to escape back into freedom and return to this colourful ledge.
And
so here I lay, precariously balanced between moments of exaltation
and the fear of being disturbed. In between those two points lies the
secret to a healthy and productive life. Boredom is not having
nothing to do, but feeling like nothing is worth doing. No one
volunteers to experience life. We don’t have a choice. That is why
anyone who completes this journey without taking short cuts is
heroic.
Can
you spare a few pesos in support of a pilgrim’s progress?
Thank
you.
May you be spared a life of inertia in motion.
Mark Blickley, from New York, is a widely published author of fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry and recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Scholarship Award for Drama. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center and author of Sacred Misfits (Red Hen Press), Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground (Moira Books). In his 2018 video, Widow’s Peek: The Kiss of Death, was selected to the International Experimental Film Festival in Bilbao, Spain, was an Audie Award Finalist for his contribution to the original audio book, Nonetheless We Persisted, and co-curated the Urban Dialogues art exhibition, Tributaries: Encontro de Rios, in Lisbon, Portugal. His most recent book is the text-based art collaboration with fine arts photographer Amy Bassin, Dream Streams by Clare Songbirds Publishing House.
Katya Shubova is a photographer and former competitive gymnast who grew up in Ukrainian Odessa. Her true passion is dance and she travels internationally to perform tango. Although identifying as a dancer, for the past few years she has studied improvisational performance and sketch comedy at New York City’s Upright Citizens Brigade. She stars in the upcoming short film, Hunger Pains, directed by Iorgo Papoutsas for Wabi Sabi Productions.
and so I spent my 20s trying to write just like him and somehow it got me my first real book-deal, from an editor in America with leanings toward fascism, and in hindsight I suppose I can see why. we’re all too easily taken by the romance of the hard life, working jobs, working women, wandering in a wildness of wine, like butterflies and mad flowers, and he could write a stylish line – that helps.
I think if I could give any advice to someone trying to be a writer it would be eat a few pages of bukowski once and early on and then quickly shit them out and away from your system with dried plums and milk of magnesia.
it was original only when he was doing it, and anyway there’s no romance now in being an original bastard with a bad soul. not when real bastards are so easy to come by.
In college he was a friend of friends— They’d gone to the same boarding school. We were both at Fort Jackson In ’61 on the eve of war. He came to our wedding And has shown up in our lives Now and then over 50 years, A bachelor from the time when That word did not raise eyebrows, Meant only that you would not Commit your life to someone else. His allegiance was to his work And his silver flask, The mathematics of insurance, Probabilities of living, And to his old school, A love his classmates did not share. His doctor tried to prescribe Better choices, Which for a while improved his Probabilities of living. In a dark downward slide He would call late at night And carry on about what good friends We’d always been. Sometimes he would leave a message Which the next day he did not recall.
