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Shorty, the Crow

by on Nov 16, 2016

The bent man on a bridge in Amsterdam
feeds crows from his hand.

We are suburban beings, you and I.
I don’t need you to need me that way.

We found each other when you were young,
fledgling with blood-red throat and blue eyes.

That I do not speak like angels doesn’t matter.
You come when I caw out a rasp-hello.

You bring blackness and shine
To the street lamp, my offer on a mailbox.

Three bows, three cucks. I bow back.
Are we friends for fat and kitten kibble?

Did I help you through last winter,
you with short tail feathers?

I admire the risks you take. Trust
that I will see you on the roof.

As I bend down to pull the willowherb,
you fly low, over. Black shadow is back.

You’re ready for me to call again.
I do, every day,

call out my loneliness.

 

—
Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet with more than a casual interest in crows, creeks, and climate change. Her poetry collections include Ocean’s Laughter (Aldrich Press, 2016) and a chapbook Urban Wild (Finishing Line Press, 2014).  Website: triciaknoll.com

Your Shadow

by on Nov 15, 2016

yourshadow

 

Your Shadow

Five in the morning, when you
stumble out of bed to go and pee
then peek between the curtains
at the weather (blue enough),
there’s the shadow of this house
projected on the white façade
of the pretty house opposite,
like glimpsing your own shadow
on the face of a stranger facing you –
the shape of your sameness,
your difference, the disjunction…

Waking later to a sun higher
in the sky, dissolving everything
in frothing seaside light,
you walk along the shore and,
startled, see it still – that lovely,
unexpected shadow follows you.

 

—
Jean Morris lives in London, takes photos, translates from French and Spanish, and surprised herself last year by seriously getting into poetry. She most recently had some micro-poems published in Otata.

monsoon

by on Nov 14, 2016

 

monsoon
silence fermenting
in the prayer book

 

—
Goran Gatalica (Virovitica, Croatia, 1982.) graduated physics and chemistry at the Faculty of Science in Zagreb after which he entered doctoral study. He publishes poetry, haiku and prose in literary magazines, journals and anthologies. He has won several awards for poetry and haiku in Croatia and abroad. He is a member of the Croatian Writers’ Association.

@ The Limekiln State Park II

by on Nov 11, 2016

The drive from Rock City, New Mexico
          to the Chicarahua Forests

in Southern Arizona takes four hours
          if you don’t stop

for coffee in Silver City. Timing,
          you see, is everything.

Once upon a time, a man decided
          the best way to find copper

was to tear the mountains to dust
          so towns could be built

in the rubble, but don’t worry,
          the sign says, the reclamation

started in 1986, and who cares
          if this wound lasts

a thousand years. Look at this poor
          mining town that has since

disappeared. In Historic Silver,
          the art store boasts real copper wares

and we feel like our skin has been stripped
          from our skin. In the park, we rest

on memorial benches. I say, not a bad place
          to spread your ashes. You say,

I prefer something more dramatic than this.

 

—
Samantha Tetangco’s short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in a number of literary magazines and selected anthologies including The Sun, Gargoyle, Phoebe, Gertrude, Oklahoma Review, Stone Path Review, Vela and others.  In 2011, she earned her MFA from the University of New Mexico.  She currently teaches writing at the University of California, Merced and is serving as the Communications Officer for this year’s AWP LGBTQ Caucus.

Warm #115

by on Nov 10, 2016

I took
a lot
of time

to think
about
the epic

& when
I felt
I felt

an under-
standing,
I ran

away
from all
shelter.

 

—
Darren C. Demaree is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Nineteen Steps Between Us (2016, After the Pause). He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He currently lives and writes in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.

Purple Angel Bottom

by on Nov 9, 2016

This squished can
has been lying

in the road for days,
getting repeatedly

run over,

so that now it’s just
a small flat disk,

as unredeemable
but distinct

as any one of five
English words

(walrus, rhythm,
purple, angel, bottom)

without a rhyme.

 

—
Howie Good co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.

Inside Job

by on Nov 8, 2016

Reaching into
a cow is some-
thing I did once
or twice it was
a really long glove
slide in where
the sun well
you know
there’s a strong glide
a peristaltic push
and slide
gain two
inches lose one
until shoulder flush
with back end
careful for swish
of manured tail
I don’t remember
now the reason
something sciencey
all I can dredge up
is the warm waves
tidal sea muscle
my arm numbing
one helluva way
to check plumbing

 

—
Steve Tomasko has written about himself in the first, third and possibly fifth person (don’t ask). He often verb-ifies things he shouldn’t and trips over his own dangling participles. Despite these possible disqualifications, he has published one poetry chapbook, “and no spiders were harmed.” You can read more about him and Jeanie (his wife, also a poet) at Jeanie & Steve Tomasko.

We Sat Outside

by on Nov 4, 2016

We sat outside the café
stretched our legs

and soaked our feet
in the pool of sunshine

that dimpled and flickered
with the shifting

and whispering
of the sycamores overhead.

We forgot that tomorrow
the clocks go back

that wet leaves will plaster
the chairs and tables.

 

With thanks to Dave Bonta and the Via Negativa poetry blog, where this was posted in October 2015.

 

—
Jean Morris lives in London, takes photos, translates from French and Spanish, and surprised herself last year by seriously getting into poetry. She most recently had some micro-poems published in Otata.

What If a Tree

by on Nov 2, 2016

examined its own rings like a farsighted proctologist? Would it recognize scars as memory, the tunneling tracks of bores, an endless winter of heaviness white on white

and again white; do the hammerings of woodpeckers continue to echo like an ache in its bark? Would the fat springs still overflow with green, swelling the air and challenging

its roots to go deeper, deeper still, filling and holding fast to the heavy damp earth.
Or would the small boy’s awkward axe its biting sting and sudden absence

hold fast? And what of the sun stalking across its limbs and leaves, pulling and pulsing and conspiring with the wind to topple while promising endlessness remain?

 

—
Richard Weaver resides in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. His publications include Crazy Horse, Vanderbilt Poetry Review, North American Review, Poetry, Black Warrior Review, 2River View, New England Review, and the ubiquitous elsewhere.

Two Years Ceased

by on Nov 1, 2016

She is seedpod, pinecone, nutshell,
unremarkable and legend:
windblown, dancing on dry grass,
recasting her space.

Every season is November:
pines bleed into flat light, sea stirs
as though something powerful
lies caged beneath.

Geese journey south, twin-edged
blades that slit the sky, pose
more questions than answers.
Her direction unclear.

Winds swirl through her house—
in and out its many windows.
The sky is thin, bruised,
first snow a laying on of hands.

 

—
Ann Howells of Carrollton, Texas, edits Illya’s Honey, recently taking it digital: IllyasHoney.com. Her publications are: Black Crow in Flight (Main Street Rag),  Under a Lone Star (Village Books Press), Letters for My Daughter (Flutter Press), and Cattlemen & Cadillacs, an anthology of D/FW poets that she edited (Dallas Poets Community Press). Her poems appear widely; she has four Pushcart nominations.