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.
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–
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.
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.
This is the Official Call for Submissions for Issue 3 of Gnarled Oak, which will start in April 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 3 through March 20 and plan on starting the Issue on April 6. Please visit the Submissions page for more in-depth guidelines. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes this way, and I hope you’ll send something and help spread the word. Thank you.
SummaryIssue 2: The Velocity of Night (Jan-Feb 2015) is an unthemed issue featuring poetry, prose, 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)
Tales of the Forest — Michele S. Cornelius
Big Red Hands — Howie Good
nail art — Angelee Deodhar
The Convert — Marie Craven
my shadow — Chen-ou Liu
hibiscus and jasmine — Marianne Paul
Bend Back and Sigh — Pamela Sayers
A Walk on the Tame Side — Vivienne Blake
Leave-taking — Dave Bonta
she’s here — Angie Werren
Day’s End — Shloka Shankar
Burn Job — Lawrence Elliott
No One’s Home — Michele S. Cornelius
a thread of scarlet — N. S.
night jasmine — Laura Williams
motionless — Shloka Shankar
A Poem by Cardboard Suitcase — S.Eta Grubešić
Spiders — Carolyn Guinzio
Rise Above — Michele S. Cornelius
silver birch — Caroline Skanne
all your broken promises — Olivier Schopfer
Some Notes toward an Ode to Yarn — Sherry Chandler
Love Tortures Me Like the CIA — Howie Good
riding pillion — Debbie Strange
Winter’s Music — Margo Roby
Wintry Seascape — Massimo Soranzio
grackles — Angie Werren
Yellow — Sherry Chandler
It seemed a funny thing to have a “winter issue” when some of Gnarled Oak’s contributors and readers are in the midst of summer. Weird too, since here in Austin, winter isn’t so much a season as a collection of random days interspersed between December and February. So this is now Issue 2: The Velocity of Night, the title from Debbie Strange’s “riding pillion” with Michele S. Cornelius’s “No One’s Home” on the cover.
What is the velocity of night anyway? How fast the sky darkens is determined by season and latitude. But there’s more there. Fast or slow, it can come with joy or sorrow, anticipation or apprehension, and it seems all that can be found in this issue. Though unthemed, themes emerged: homes in transition, leaving and returning; love with its beginnings and endings; and, of course, the way winter shifts to spring (and back again as it’s doing here today).
I’m happy with the way this issue came together, the diversity of the work—poetry, prose, videos, artwork—and voices from all around the world made this especially fun. I can get lost staring at a map, and it’s exciting to me to be able to present work from so many writers and artists representing so many corners of this little blue world.
And so, sincerest thanks to all who allowed me the honor and privilege of publishing their work, all who submitted work to Gnarled Oak, and everyone who read and helped to share the wonderful writing and artwork found in this issue.
With gratitude and thanks,
James Brush, editor
February 2015
///
Gnarled Oak — Issue 2: The Velocity of Night: Read online | Read the PDF
When forsythia splashes
winter’s gray
with Pollack color,
and daffodils dare
the sun to match
their bright with warm,
when dandelions dot
the lawn with
smiley faces,
the goldfinch sheds
his olive drab and
the yellow tom caterwauls,
both in search of something
we’ll call love,
the time has come
to stow our scratchy
wools and plant
our onion sets.
—
Sherry Chandler’s second full-length book of poems, The Woodcarver’s Wife, celebrates the cycles of life on her small farm in Kentucky. She has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. She has been published in a number of online and print publications, most recently in the Blue Fifth Review, Kestrel, and the Louisville Review. She posts micro poetry on Twitter as @BluegrassPoet.
—
Angie Werren lives (and writes) in a tiny house in Ohio. Sometimes she takes pictures of things in the yard.
Orangey to dark red sun over the flat, still,
greenish lagoon that no passing boat will stir
nor crease, nor move to compassion.
All shades of blue, the blues of a still life
by the sea, blend with the strokes of sunset
above the old church on the island,
waiting for the next fisherman
to come and deliver
his vow.
—
Massimo Soranzio lives about 20 miles from Trieste, on the northern Adriatic coast of Italy, where he teaches English as a foreign language and English literature. He’s been a journalist, a translator, and a freelance lecturer on Modernist literature and literary translation. In April 2014, he took part in the Found Poetry Review’s Oulipost challenge. Some of his poems can be found on his blog, massimosoranzio.tumblr.com or published online.
Sleet has a beat,
a syncopation:
it crackles when it hits
like the rat-a-tat-tat
of dried beans
pouring into a pot.
—
Margo Roby lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where she focuses on her writing, while her husband works so they can eat. Margo also runs a poetry blog, Wordgathering.
