and if you sketched the view from here minus

by on Jul 22, 2016

the streets and alleys, minus the motels and the three rollercoasters, minus the jetty and the lighthouse and the catamarans lined upside down on the sand, minus the evening’s surfers, the young women with their dogs, street poets, booksellers, guitars and glass jars stuffed with old dollars, minus pizza toppings, car keys, small lamps burning in windows, minus the fathers calling time to come in

and minus even this wharf where people sit with their fried clams and slices of lemon, where people fall into the sea as you draw in reverse dismantling the boards, erasing all but landscape and a pod of sea lions arcing in for the night and a few gray gulls flying toward the mountains off to the left; all that was before anyone ordered decaf for two or touched another’s face with a hand small as rain

 

—
Jeanie Tomasko is the author of a few poetry books, most recently (Prologue), the recipient of an Editor’s Choice award from Concrete Wolf Chapbook Series, and Violet Hours (Taraxia Press), a collection of the antics of a unique little girl. She can be found on her website (jeanietomasko.com), walking around somewhere near Lake Superior with her husband, Steve, or enjoying the antics of her cats at home, where she endeavors to always have a bottomless honey jar, garlic from the garden and bees in the front yard hyssop.

Texas Life Story, Six Words

by on Jul 21, 2016

My life is Texas, long stretches,
a mixed bag of land so
vast, I could run forever and
you would never know me from
one solitary place to the other.

Contentment is in movement. I roam
through plains so plain and wide,
mirages begin to look like other
mirages begin to look like me.

Each year a different region, each
day a new valley, but if
the spot is comfortable, with adequate
food, water, sun, room, and protection,
I may try to set camp,
claim my space, dig my heels
into crumbling ground until I cannot
fight the wolves off any longer.

Texas is like a marriage, they
say. A long one, and nobody
ever leaves her. I sure can’t.
They say Texas is overdue freedom,
and she is, so long as
you love Texas and come home
to her often. She loves you
but she is a demanding wife.

 

—
Lisa Bubert is a writer currently living in Denton, TX with her drummer husband and very distraught cat.

Acutance

by on Jul 19, 2016

Pull in the nets,
swollen from seven passes off the Gulf.

White boots squeak on wet deck,
knots loosen and shrimp slide
out of twine, onto wood.

What rolled underfoot
now buzzes with shell and fin.

Sorting bins fill with overs and unders.
Lemon fish are swept into the hold for bait.

Stingrays flop to the sides
and are shoveled over,
reminders that days could be worse.

 

—
Jack Bedell is currently a Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. His latest collections are Bone-Hollow, True: New & Selected Poems, Call & Response, Come Rain, Come Shine, What Passes for Love and At the Bonehouse, all published by Texas Review Press (a member of the Texas A&M Press Consortium). He recently returned from a wonderful week at the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference.

Westbound PA Turnpike

by on Jul 18, 2016

Sunny humid hills clustered with leaves, puffed with bursting gusto,
the corn high from all the rain we’ve had, mist gathered in the meadows.

Cows collect in batches of milk and coal. The sky takes charge ,
vapor congeals, dense billows, like that it’s over you, a freight train edged by sunlight.

Slipping past the empty rust-belt plant, rain splotches the car,
shatters thin oil slicks with darts, as I vault over the Susquehanna.

Rain swallows cars, trucks, bridge and river. I’m slashing vainly through,
but the rain folds back, drapes layers down, then it’s all you can do

to grip steady and not leap the guard rail. On the west bank,
rain pulls the shower curtain — elongated ridges like thighs

and vapors of orange sundown ripple along torqued rock cuts.
The concrete vein draws me towards a pumping heart weak from blood loss.

The houses are drawn farther apart, the traffic nodules isolated in
little spurts of motion — pulse with instinct and intention.

Engine cylinders rotate 2100 times a minute — like our hearts, slamming and firing
forward, from point A to B. Cue the Ronnettes, be my baby now.

 

—
James Esch teaches literature and creative writing at Widener University. He is editor of Turk’s Head Review and the founder of Spruce Alley Press and a co-advisor of Widener’s online magazine for undergraduate writers, The Blue Route. His recent publications include work in Dr. T. J. Eckleburg Review, Stoneslide Corrective, and Black Heart Magazine. He blogs at eschorama.com.

composing for voice & breath

by on Jul 15, 2016

for Ilario

compose me a symphony
using only your voice : let
it boom & bassoon, cello
a treble & be thin like a
violin

speak of love & sin, of
giving up & giving in, of
how low a solo can go &
when to begin an opus’
ending

across staves rave about
your day, how it ends too
soon &, mesmerised, i’ll
listen to your tune & even
sigh

 

—
Scott-Patrick Mitchell is an Australian poet whose latest collection, inner pity poems (2016), is available now through Department of Poetry. For more information please visit www.facebook.com/scottpatrickmitchellpoet

Gossamer

by on Jul 14, 2016

gos-sa-mer \  n  [ME gossomer, fr. gos  goose + somer  summer]  1 : and if wings could wing : and if summer could last : and if we could be as soft and careful as milkweed air :  as in, too soon we grab the net or nail and try to pin things down when  2 : it’s enough to know they are there1   3 : and right here in the middle of writing this, I get an e-mail from Orbitz, subject line: You’re so fly  3 : Dear Orbitz, how did you know?   4 : because the wind is blowing and the yellow leaves are flying and, I am so fly  5 : here with you under the available sky, a silver airplane2  &

 

 

1I think, as birds fly past our morning window

2two ravels of [goose + summer] geese

 

—
Jeanie Tomasko is the author of a few poetry books, most recently (Prologue), the recipient of an Editor’s Choice award from Concrete Wolf Chapbook Series, and Violet Hours (Taraxia Press), a collection of the antics of a unique little girl. She can be found on her website (jeanietomasko.com), walking around somewhere near Lake Superior with her husband, Steve, or enjoying the antics of her cats at home, where she endeavors to always have a bottomless honey jar, garlic from the garden and bees in the front yard hyssop.

I Am April

by on Jul 13, 2016

I am April, tail end of the rains. Flowers scattered askance and winking through the glassy drops. Mud tracks drying up, but still gifting a mess on the door mat. Don’t count me out for a storm or two and if Easter is in my grasp the high and holy days will dazzle, glory abounding hallelujah. That fresh breeze, floral and dank; we’re on the way into fullness and fruit, Winter’s grasp receding, but I haven’t forgotten him yet. Dim wretch, all this green and life is proof that hope is made new, anew.

I might be leaning into the sunshine, underdressed, straining toward the summer warm, but this is my favorite part. The cusp, the place in between.

 

—
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.

Issue 9: Call for Submissions

by on Jun 1, 2016

This is the Official Call for Submissions for Issue 9 of Gnarled Oak, which will start in July and be an unthemed issue.

Gnarled Oak accepts poetry, prose, videos and artwork. I don’t like to impose rules on what is and isn’t acceptable (other than the no hate speech, no pornography one), but as a general guideline, I tend to favor shorter works, which for our purposes means poems of less than 20 lines, prose less than 1000 words, and videos less than 7 minutes long. Regarding form and style, I’m open to almost anything. Check out previous issues to get a sense of things.

I’ll be reading for Issue 9 through June 30 and plan on starting the issue the week of July 4 July 11. Please visit the Submissions page for more in-depth guidelines. I look forward to seeing what comes this way, and I hope you’ll send something and help spread the word. Thank you.

Issue 8: The Somnambulist’s Notebook—Summary, Contents & Editor’s Note

by on May 31, 2016

gnarled_oak_cover8Summary

Issue 8: The Somnambulist’s Notebook (Apr-May 2016) is an unthemed issue featuring poetry, videos, and artwork from writers and artists around the world.

Read online | Read the PDF (click to read online, right-click & save-as to download)

Contents

longest night… — Archana Kapoor Nagpal

Ring-Around-Your-Dreams — Steve Klepetar

The Perigee Moon — Tricia Knoll

Dream of Flying — Michele S. Cornelius

The Somnambulist’s Notebook — Steve Klepetar

Joining the Lotus Eaters — Marie Craven

Making Friends with the Bear — Jo Waterworth

Pine — Arielle Lipset

The body that gleams in the depths — Luisa A. Igloria

Medieval saints could read hearts — Rebecca Valley

Sweet Insanity — Ehi’zogie Iyeomoan

Wasteland — Olivier Schopfer

Waiting — Marianne Paul

Dragon’s Breath — Mary McCarthy

Murmurations — Jennifer Hernandez

Worried Man Blues — Harold Whit Williams

Lilies of the Field — Marie Craven

Rural Road — Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco

Train — John L. Stanizzi

Homestead — Debbie Strange

high — Güliz Vural

haiku haiku hai — Marianne Paul

Boy — Casey Stein & Jamie Wimberly

Towards a Larger Physical Stoicism
 — Harold Whit Williams

Washes the Other — Todd Mercer

Winning — Jade Anouka

Dear Zion Canyon, — Carolyn Martin

Reserving Judgment
 — Laura M. Kaminski & Saddiq Dzukogi

brushstrokes — Marianne Paul

Compline — Luisa A. Igloria

Editor’s Note

Simon the Cat likes to bite me sometimes. I don’t really know why. I’m sure he has his reasons, and in the grand scheme of feline justice it all probably makes sense. I’m sure I wronged him weeks or months ago, and as with the US Supreme Court, it sometimes takes months to hand down a decision. The decision tonight: bite.

So I’m sitting here trying to come up with an editor’s note worthy of this issue, and this cat is circling my legs, accepting head scratches and sometimes going for the cheap shot. Does he know he’s going to the vet later in the week for his annual vaccinations?

Or perhaps he’s telling me that I have nothing to add here this time because this issue is so wonderful. Why mess it up, James, he’s saying.

So, I’ll follow Simon’s advice (he is on the masthead, after all) and just say thanks to everyone who submitted, read, shared, commented and enjoyed this issue. I’m probably not supposed to say this as an impartial editor, but it’s one of my favorites.

With gratitude and thanks,

James Brush, editor
May 2016

///

Gnarled Oak — Issue 8: The Somnambulist’s Notebook: Read online | Read the PDF (right-click/save-as to download)