Issue 12: Refuge

Issue 12: Refuge (Apr-May 2017) is an unthemed issue featuring poetry, prose, videos, and artwork from writers and artists around the world.

The Island

by on May 1, 2017

Kristin-who-cuts-my-hair describes her sweet
honeymoon in the Bahamas. She *Snip*

says it was a telephone offer. Who
in their right mind would? But they did.

In the mirror, behind blue Barbicide,
she shapes thin sheets of hair as she talks.

But she’s only a blur—her island grows,
luxurious, through my reflection. Later, home,

and the Weather shows a swirling egg yolk,
red as a dragon’s eye, aimed at the Bahamas.

Someone told me once: Don’t go to Paris,
it’s not there. And if you loved the book,

don’t see the movie, ever. Untroubled by storms,
Kristin’s green lizards smile on from pink walls.

 

—
Barbara Young hasn’t been writing much this year. East Nashville got too popular, so she and Jim packed up the cats and moved out to White Bluff. A grocery, two hardware stores, and a bakery that only makes doughnuts. Change is interesting. Because writing prompts can be easier than poems, Barbara sometimes becomes “Miz Quickly.”

snow angel

by on Apr 28, 2017

 

snow angel
two sticks from the woodpile
and a butterfly

 

—
Tom Sacramona is a poet living in Plainville, Massachusetts. He is grateful to have haiku published in journals, such as bottle rockets, Mayfly and Modern Haiku. Sacramona is a member of the Boston Haiku Society and the Haiku Society of America.  Learn more about haiku: Visit his blog at tomsacramona.wordpress.com

Landmine in a Field of Flowers

by on Apr 27, 2017

(Watch Matt Mullins’ video “Landmine in a Field of Flowers” on Vimeo)

 

—
Matt Mullins writes and makes videopoems, music, and digital/interactive literature. His work has screened at various festivals in the United States and throughout the world including Visible Verse, Zebra, Videobardo, Liberated Words, Rabbit Heart, and Co-Kisser. He has published poetry and fiction in numerous print and online journals, and is the author of the short story collection Three Ways of the Saw (Atticus Books). You can engage his interactive/digital literary interfaces at lit-digital.com.

Avoidance

by on Apr 26, 2017

Waiting for catastrophe
I keep busy with things
that don’t matter,
avoid starting what
I might not finish,
try not to mourn,
or spend myself in rage,
wasting energies
I can’t replace.
Grief will come
when I think I have
outrun it.
I already have too many
sympathy cards
and sleepless hours enough
to find thousands
of bad endings
that become easier and easier
to imagine.

 

—
Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in many online and print journals, including Earth’s Daughters, Gnarled Oak, Third Wednesday and Three Elements Review. Her echapbook Things I Was Told Not To Think About is available through Praxis magazine online as a free download. She is grateful for the wonderful online communities of writers and poets sharing their work and passion for writing, providing a rich world of inspiration, appreciation, and delight.

i woke this morning

by on Apr 25, 2017

to a neutral voice intoning
bombs in marketplaces
and refugees washed upon the shore

to music of breath and skin
dark cascade of pillowed hair
gossamer feather of touch

to dreams of justice
from the vast sea’s edge
to beyond the distant shore

to a jacaranda blue day
dancing through the curtain
and kookaburras’ liquid burst of song

 

—
Neil Creighton is an Australian poet whose work as a teacher of English and Drama brought him into close contact with thousands of young lives, most happy and triumphant but too many tragically filled with neglect. It made him intensely aware of how opportunity is so unequally proportioned and his work often reflects strong interest in social justice. His recent publications have been in Poetry Quarterly, Autumn Sky Daily, Praxis mag online, Rats Ass and Verse Virtual, where he is a Contributing Editor. He blogs at windofflowers.blogspot.com.au

Lenting

by on Apr 24, 2017

I have lented the ‘shoulds’ in years past. This year, I will lent what steals my breath. I will lent the cycling shrieks of war cries empty, and war cries full. This year I will lent the streaming compulsive—media and social media and the rites of the angry. This year I will lent the proclamations of imminence—every one.  This year I will lent the proclamations of eminence—all but one.

This year I lent, so that prayers made quiet, and prayers made loud I can hear myself. I can hear the whisper call of power and holiness simmering, resonating, in the presence of the Throned. In the just-beyond-my-eyelids.

 

—
Tiffany Grantom is a mother of five, doula, paralegal, wearer-of-many-hats-busy-monger who hopes for a season with time to write a book.  Today, just scribbles and lists, and fly-by wording glories.  Also found in working clothes at insightdoula.com.