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Mary at 30 Thinks about 60

by on Apr 21, 2015

Maybe Elton will give me grandchildren,
cute as ten-cent Cokes.  I’ll take them uptown
where the purple martin houses decay,
the diner where I met Grandpa Joseph
now a gun shop.

I won’t wear make-up,
not even lipstick.
If I’m called a frump,
so what?  We’re all frumps
after a certain age, men too.

I’ll ride my bike to garage sales,
buy cookbooks and trellises,
take a train trip across country,
New York to Seattle, have an affair
somewhere around Omaha,
nothing life-changing.

Don’t ask about Death.
I’ll cling to life like a dahlia
tied to a flagpole.  Unless
I’m sick.  Morphine and bed sores.
Mom died at 62.  It came fast,
like a stone dropping from a bridge.

60 seems far away.  A twig
dropping into the bird bath.

 

—
Kenneth Pobo has a book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet. His recent work has been in: Weber: The Contemporary West, Floating Bridge, The Queer South (anthology), and elsewhere.

Rendered

by on Apr 20, 2015

Because I am not the youngest
and older than the others

I will be the one who must remember
the greatest part
most accurately

the meaning of our parent’s secret glances
and the soft confessions
of guilt for being too often left alone.

I’m not allowed to forget
how our father
tried to put things back together
by literally putting things together

the pride of his rehab clock
knocked to the floor
just after completion

telling awkward time in crestfallen numbers.

 

—
Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL with his wife Vickie and daughter Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. He was recently a finalist in The Rash Awards and a top ten finisher in the Writer’s Digest poetry competition. His poem “Distillery of the Sun” was awarded second place in the 2014 Bacopa Literary Review poetry contest.

The Trees in Buena

by on Apr 16, 2015

The trees in Buena carry
A degree of coldness in their fruit.
They are perishing now over the solemn
Vistas of the city,
Unreal blots of color
On an otherwise grey dominion.
Through the patios of lonely families
The moon is an orange in the bright fists
Of summer.
Its reflection fills with stars and wood smoke.
Through the streets, through the grey
Huddle of buildings,
We smoke camels and light fractions
Of the dark. We confess and absolve.
We disappear.

 

—
Seth Jani originates from rural Maine but currently resides in Seattle, WA. He is the founder of Seven CirclePress and his own work has been published widely in such journals as The Foundling Review, East Coast Literary Review, Red Ceilings Press and Hobo Camp Review. More about him and his work can be found at sethjani.com.

To: That Bird So Small I Mistook You For a Floater

by on Apr 15, 2015

in my eye. In the branches mirror-
silvered by an inch of ice, you
were a movement and a frigid little song,
a frozen hinge opening.

I never thought before
to wonder do avians have artifacts
of vision, too. Eye wall art
with no provenance as if graffito
ninjas swim the humors, spray can
stencil hawks primed
to vex the optic nerves.

How small those birds would be.

 

—
Barbara Young is a native of Nashville, Tennessee. She likes bluegrass, blues, jam cake, chess pie, cats, and small but roomy cars; and she wishes she’d paid more attention.

Solar Therapy

by on Apr 14, 2015

Endless days of dripping dark
spirals approaching singularity.

I stare in wonder at an odd glow as
fog and clouds burn away.

Blue is my new favorite color.
If you need me, I’ll be standing with my face to the sun.

 

—
Michele S. Cornelius lives in Southeast Alaska where she works on photographic art and fills notebooks with poems.

That Sinking Feeling

by on Apr 13, 2015

A river runs under the house.
It has always been there,
but the builders thought
they could make it go away
by throwing ash and stone
into the water.

The neighborhood is sinking.
Gradually it will disappear.
Hold onto the walls and furniture
as you start your journey
to the center of the Earth
or out to open sea.

 

—
Joseph Farley edited Axe Factory from 1986 to 2010. Farley writes poetry, fiction, plays and essays. He also performs with Improv on Rye. His books and chapbooks include Suckers, For the Birds, Longing for the Mother Tongue, Waltz of the Meatballs, Her Eyes, and Crow of Night. His work has appeared recently in Bellview Park Pages, Bewildering Tales, Beyond Imagination, BlazeVOX, Crack the Spine, Danse Macabre, Concrete Meat Sheets, Thunder Sandwich, Horror Sleaze Trash, Schlock, T. Gene Davis Speculative Blog, US 1 Worksheets, Verse Wisconsin, Visions and Voices, Whole Beast Rag, Ygdrasil, Literary Hatchet, and the anthologies One Hell of a Christmas (Thirteen O’Clock Press, 2014) and Night Walkers (Thirteen O’Clock Press, 2014).

& in the dream

by on Apr 9, 2015

I saw

a white flower star

(there could have been a bee)

&  upon awakening

I looked at the mountains

&  the imprint of the white flower star

became an owl became a heart

 

—
Marcia Arrieta is a poet, artist, teacher, who enjoys nature and travel. Her work has appeared in Otoliths, BlazeVOX, Catch & Release, Melusine, Eratio, and Web Conjunctions. She edits and publishes Indefinite Space, a poetry/art journal.

Column

by , on Apr 8, 2015

Column

I wake at the edge
of the garden
in a cloud colored nightgown.
This was not my idea
but since there is no one here
I gather the dark to my face.
Since there is no one
I toss the pall from
one moment to the next.

Soon I’ll turn my face away.
The moon has a blank stare
but it blinks relentlessly, tearing
the night I carry inside me.
When I lived in the light,
I had all the shadow I needed.

 

—
Janet and Cheryl Snell are sisters who collaborate on art and word projects. One of their collections, Prisoner’s Dilemma, won the Lopside Press Chapbook Competition. Both Snells regularly publish in the small magazines, and recently had work in PANK, Mixitini Matrix, and Deep Water literary Journal. They keep a blog of art and poetry called Scattered Light.

crescent moon

by on Apr 7, 2015

 

crescent moon–
I press your yellow rose
in Revelations

 

—
Texas native Laurie Kolp, author of Upon the Blue Couch (Winter Goose Publishing, 2014), serves as president of Texas Gulf Coast Writers and gathers monthly with local members of the Poetry Society of Texas. Laurie’s poems have appeared in more than four dozen print and online journals including Blue Fifth Review, the 2015 Poet’s Market and Pirene’s Fountain. You can find out more about Laurie on her website, lauriekolp.com.

Love Is in the Air

by on Apr 6, 2015

Throw Molotovs
in clear-blue jars
as if they were flowers
and watch them grow and
explode like spring in bloom
with the scent of roses
and gasoline on fire
their purple burn on skin—
the sun is high
the equinox has come
and love is in the air.

 

(Ekphrastic poem written in response to “Love is in the Air” a work of graffiti art by Banksy)

—
Neil Ellman, a poet from New Jersey, has been published in numerous journals, anthologies and chapbooks throughout the world.  He has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize and twice for Best of the Net.