I dream of warm beds and wonderful blankets
If Time was water,
I'd nestle shallow above it.
I'd flick the sand from my hand,
feel the wind upon me descend;
In the gentle ebb and flow,
warm and comfortable.
I'd even remain content
with the precise ticking
of a punctual hand,
unmoved and unassuming,
never inclined to stay behind;
with its pesky nudge and splash,
I'd still count the minutes I can spare;
and the wet sand -
sifting swiftly through my hand,
dissolving
Edgar Bagayan
Dead Cat Poem
You cannot write a poem
about a dead cat, he said.
But I disagreed,
because its rigid resting
stretched out in the gutter
had struck me:
white bellied, back striped
like the last grey and angry tiger;
lips curled back
in one final warning hiss;
eyes rolled glass,
in one unending final stare;
a thick but solitary
riverlet of blood
a black exclamation,
to mark that he had passed.
You cannot write a poem
about a dead cat, he said.
But I disagreed,
because the sight
stalked my night
like he might have walked
to hunt and couple and howl,
with tail erect and proud,
a-prowl to do whatever cats do
when we their keepers
are out of view.
You cannot write a poem
about a dead cat, he said.
But I disagreed,
because that cat
was a man like me.
Clive Birnie
The Worst Thing in the World that could have happened
We’re not so unique, there are words like this
spilling into letters in other countries, you know.
They write sorry and goodbye and don’t stop.
There are things happening everywhere
and everyone’s sorrow is as true as mine, their hearts
as red and full of pumping blood. My words spill
out of my head so full of the things you’ve said
and the ways there are to die or make it die.
These are the things I work with, like clay
or like stone, these are the bits of electricity
that knock my body against the fireplace on an opposite wall.
They spell out a hot blue bruise on my hand, a man’s voice,
pages and pages of broken bones and wet pavement.
I build with words and your words threw me like words
move through me and out and crash against the worst thing
in the world that could have happened and nothing changes.
Christine Brandel
Language of Moths
They flutter in spangles of sun beneath eastern hemlocks
their shadows tag ripples on water,
daredevils
nearly dip their dusted wings,
and only ten feet downstream
winter's melt falls hard over the edge onto the flat rock below
that holes have formed,
one perfect for plunging our bodies and
we do, over and over,
a little less startled by the cold each time
the water is warmed slightly by our play,
while our eyes level with the slippery moss.
Above us, the small cloud of moths gathers
in this time we call September,
in clusters four-leafed clovers, bleached, and small
as the sky divers in white at the air shows we watched at the shore.
From cocoon to the first open wing of July
the white lichen moths seem to know nothing of what they are not.
I would catch them with my eyes as they darted like a game of survival
in and out under ledges of bluestone along the bank,
four or five, way below the shade of hardwoods
that gives the conifers life.
Alone, the last moth would vanish,
like sleight of hand,
in the measured closing of the day.
Garden's Light
From dust-laden glances
fallen to Earth
I watch a lifeless leaf
whither to the Soil's tangled hair
dead of a stroke,
where a handful of Dragonflies
set-sail in their unbound light
and zoom
through the swoo
of the wind
dodging rapid Flies
and Spiderweb hugs
and Butterflies who batter
their wings, tripping over
the waves in the air
tripping themselves to death
their motion weak with the dawn
The early summer swallows
in my dreams
and whitens the trees
and days to oblivion
and then my dreams
become the Butterfly's,
motion humid, fallen
to its end.
Hawks
The sharp-eyed birds circle in the black desert heat,
Far below, a mottled array of black and smoking warts
Stain the rolling, rippled tissue,
And mark out the coming feast.
‘Hawks’ they call them:
A misnomer and slight on a gracious bird
For such an ignoble pursuit.
It feels like an enormous weight of thoughtlessness,
A great building mass, devoid of empathy
Progressing irresistibly to its pitiless terminal.
Is this finally that rough beast
Slouching toward its untimely birth?
Beneath the petty squabbles of the older vultures,
In the midst of their high-minded scavengery,
Lies a broken body.
Not one being fought over;
A long forgotten figure,
Curled up into a lonely, wistful repose,
Her alabaster sheen blemished in crimson fissures.
Noam Baruch
Burning Happiness
I love the feeling of my skin changing
the way the sun sears against my flesh
pigments changing color
deepening in protest
that I so relish
It isn't the pain
but the beauty that I feel
like something inside is moving
dark brown shows the war
that is fought beneath the surface
and I just enjoy the end of the fight
It is an odd thing to love
that somewhat stinging feeling
as the light from above shines
and the milk of my skin
cries out and curdles
but I just inhale
enjoying the feeling
The warmth that slides across my unwilling body
and passes inside as the fortress falls
it is a battle
nothing more
and the fighter in me laughs
as the outcome is already decided
sundrenched and drunk on life
my sullen skin shows its anger
to spite it
I love what it destroyed
Cracks in the Sidewalk
There are cracks in the sidewalk
They run like rivers
Under bare feet
And are scampered over
Unseen
They feel like abysses
Under toes
But all they are
Are cracks in the sidewalk
Running away
Forever and forever
These cracks stretch
Maybe yearning for something more
Than forgetfulness
And old chewing gum
Yes
There are cracks in the sidewalk
With fingers tracing patterns
And delving deep inside
Learning hushed secrets
There is a lot to learn
From cracks in the sidewalk
Years had made them
Youth have found them
Cracks in the sidewalk
Rachel Flynn
The Arena
A lemonade walk, a giddy explosion of
Taste buds, red lips and blackberry teeth.
We trotted and wound a hot tarmac path.
Up along long sleeve hill, where the thorn bushes
Bite you and scratch.
Sunday’s for searching in old Apple Jacks’ dump.
For cardboard, four by twos, old dusty shoes behind
A lemonade crate.
Just at the end of the field you could smell dead fish .
We called it Killybeg’s pit.
Hopping through the footpaths of cod,
Black eyes that crept through the bed
Of my sleep I’d thank God it was day
And not night.
Steaming through the valley
Deeply scarred by the hands of machines.
Towards a sun that cracked a pastel blue sky
Screaming little Indians.
As we zig-zagged passed the big yellow teeth
Stumbling on surprises, things that stand and fall
With the clip of a foot.
We tugged and heaved, crack bang clatter
As hundred sea gulls flapped.
Little hands pulling and heaving, as screeching
Rust echoed. The beat of broken pallets.
We built our Arena.
Round and round against a strawberry sky
We jumped and danced.
Up over a three legged chair, to a plastic
River moat, forty faults for a rattle sixty for a fall.
Hand shakes congratulations
For little victories.
Even when the sun said goodbye
We didn’t stop till the search party arrived.
Crowbars’ mammy dragged us home
C’mon
Just another day at the Arena.
Robert Furness
Ballad
You and I cry sometimes, when times get rough and ready, and these unsteady lines remind me why flying things with wings have danger signs. And we laugh sometimes too, me and you, it’s true, because brewing tears takes work, gotta laugh it off, you jerk, irking me with quirk after quirk, I wrote this one for you. In lieu of together-time, I’ll use feathers, mimes, treasures, lines, and sign language (once I learn it) to tell you stories, the glories of writing are like fighting, for me, (because I’m lame), and so I will write-fight for you till I lose my pen behind my ear again, then I’ll stab my notebook (don’t look) until its pages are battered and I’ve gone mad-hattered crazy. For you. This is me topping off your ink-drink (say when), refills are free, bills, well, we could avoid them for awhile if that would make you smile (say when), problems piling up? Don’t sigh. My idea is that it’s all about redefining why problems can’t be assets. I sit and set myself up for failure, and failing at that I might just work up the nerve to say (when, now?) I love you.
A Q-Tip Grievance
I never complain—
in fact it’s great
when he lets the yellow build up,
I horde it like sticky bumblebee gold
and build walls
until he barges in and swab-robs me
with his cotton-tipped stick
the fleshy modern-art façade always
flapping and perking at people
is just a veneer,
all my actual work is
handled by internal affairs
intimately supervising his
rumbling grumbling thoughts—
considering both sides of the argument
the monotonous drone of logic marching
persistently onwards (left…left…left)
and the melodic undulations of creativity
harmonizing beautifully in reply:
the grating duet of intelligence
it takes some conforming, but the
contemplation vibrations become soothing
(after a while) and the problem
is he’s addicted to decibels—
he devours them like blueberries
overdosing as policy
and if there’s good music out there
he can’t find it
permanent hiatus isn’t out of the question
it’s been done but it takes practice
and hey,
I never complain—
so for now, all I can do in revenge
is move fluid around and swell things,
he’s not so fond of the drums then.
Ben Gehrels
Izzy
head like a poached egg settled deep in the neck: rings of wrinkles
bury it,
eyelids closed and opening again like the automatic doors separating
the sidewalk from the produce section. I wonder if the skin
would be that shade of blue—a glow stick before it’s cracked—
if the WHITE ELECTRIC bulbs did not run the length of the tank.
she must sense the difference between filtered fluorescence and
sunlight
floating through specks of sand.
the black rough splotches like leaked oil on a concrete lot dapple
every coursing foot—you’ve woken up, bubbles cling to the
tubule nose, to the pointed mouth—and the water gets pushed
around.
my purple-polished finger gets you going following turning the eyes
to catch the next movement and I think, so elegant and so
smart—that shell
merely covers one of those vacuuming robots that move about
sensing
turns, edges, chair legs—but
You’ve charged me.
The mouth opens rubs against the glass flashing
A moment of no teeth just pink tongue—
Reminding me of an infant’s round toe.
Strawberry
A bitten-lip-red skin studded with seeds
Is bumpy smoothness when in contact with the tongue,
Detecting the sweetness of the point
Of the conical fruit once a small bite is taken.
Not to be gobbled down, but nibbled slowly,
Relishing the growing tart sensation as it sheds
Its red color, the white ring around the head of the berry
Steals attention away from the ridged leaves—relegating them
Merely to sparse, short handle. The addition of sugar
Is wasted; the sourness at the end of the sweet is meant
To remind us.
Michele K Johnson
Summer 1962
That blistering summer that Aunt Bertha’s blueberry crunch pie
finished fourth in the national semifinal,
the one your brother threw down that ditch
just because. Hot arid afternoons spent with Tom’s aging beagle
taunting that kid in a wheelchair,
combing in Paul’s Perfect Pomade in an effort to appear dapper
for the ladies. While the sweat stained your dapper
white Hanes and you contemplated how pi
would actually affect your life, you rode the back of that wheelchair
during the boxcar derby semifinal,
the droopy-lidded beagle
nipping at your ankles. That dirty ditch-
your first tits. That dirty ditch-
dreams were made, bodies were snatched, panties were hung
delicately by Dapper
Dave, the black aviators covering his beagle-
eyed gaze, the scent of chicken pot pie
perfuming the air over the din of the crickets. It was your semifinal-
e, the almost-but-not-quite crowning achievement, next to stealing
the cripple kid’s wheelchair.
You were so proud to possess that wheelchair
converting it to your easy chair while you ditch-
ed your friends during the semifinal.
“Donald Duck was never so dapper,”
a giggle and a smile, a taste of the cherry pie,
lavender and honey-vanilla in her hair, the coarse fur of the beagle
grazing her fingertips. The soft pink beagle
tongue tasting her toes as they draped off the wheelchair
and the two of you discovered the mysteries of pi,
the romantic enclosure of the branches above the ditch
creating the perfect pristine moment. You forgot your efforts to be
dapper
as her soft skin and vanilla tresses tickled your tongue in the last
round of the semifinal.
She motioned for you to take it slowly; “this is only the semifinal”
and so you take a breather, motioning for Johnson to take his beagle
for a walk. You comb your hair, straighten your collar while Dapper
Dave’s panties blow in the wind. She straightens herself in the
wheelchair
noticing the growing audience in your ditch,
Tommy Nelson eating the remnants of the sticky cherry pie.
And there it is: her loveliness against the harsh glare of the
wheelchair,
the noise and crowd in the ditch
as the sun goes down with the sweet scent of pie.
Samantha Knapp
John Brown
__________________________________________
76/5 Wood Street, Dublin, 1st April, 1901
A piece of leather held in his two hands
Would make the uppers of two boots.
He pulled at its edges, stretching it gently,
Rubbing the smooth hide with his thumbs,
His forefingers feeling the velvet.
The honeyed fumes of his wooden workshop filled him;
Strips and patches of golden skin breathing still.
The polished steel head of his little anvil caught the morning sun;
His hammers hanging on nails above the workbench.
They were still asleep upstairs.
He had a picture of Bridget in his heart;
The day they married in County Clare,
Her soft voice and eyes echoing,
The lace she wore, down to her buttoned boots.
He kissed her lips like they were plums.
The kettle came to the boil and he lifted it from the stove.
He made a pot of tea, heating two white tin mugs.
Climbing the stairs he could hear the girls stirring,
Richard mumbling something in his sleep.
Matthew Dowling
_____________________________________________________
39 St Martin’s Terrace, Chapelizod, Sunday 31st March, 1901
Bridget pulled the stool in closer to the square piano
Broadwood, supplied by J.B. Logier of Sackville Street
Fixing herself and turning the page over and back twice
She knew the piece well but these little rituals helped everyone settle down
Mathew turned down the wick on the second lamp
Checking with his raised eyebrows if her mother was all right
Mrs Gorman patted her lap with both hands
He gave his handlebars a little twist at their extremities
Tugged on his waistcoat and sat back into the chair by the fire
'Silent Oh Moyle be the roar of thy water'
They loved that one
The little key change at the end of the first line
It was such a sad little song, but so Irish
Lir’s lovely daughters or was it his lonely daughters?
He poked the fire and put another log on
The sparks were dancing now to Love’s old Sweet Song
‘Once in the dear dead days beyond recall’
He flipped the cover on his pocket watch
I’ll stretch my legs I think, he said
What do you think William?
Pulling the silver-topped cane out of the hallstand
They could hear his heels on the cream and wine tiles
Pulling the door of thirty nine behind him
Making his way to the Tap, for just the one
John Drake
________________________________________
Castleknock, County Dublin, 1st April 1901
The geraniums in the front porch were cut back to their bare bones
John Drake’s pig was huffing and puffing, trying to get comfortable
Mary Kate’s navy pinafore was hanging over a chair
Her boots parked neatly under her bed
The Stable Man was dreaming that a man and a boy had walked through his terraced cottage
In the front door and out the back, without as much as a word
They climbed with purpose out over the back fence, to pick wild mushrooms
Hay Machine (e)
Cat Knowledge
These whiskers are conductors,
a tuning fork in each spoke.
Music is sensed in the stillest
still.
From this windows’ the blue beads
veils lift for the wondrous glimpse:
"moksha" the gift
of those distant robins,
their mahogany bellies
telling of the frail,
the indestructible.
In response
these feline synesthetes
purr color back, such sherbet
bubbles in those consonants.
Purple, purple
is their favorite mantra
to chant for the aura of what
is good.
All is, and true, their furred
triangle faces resting on a paw
in mesmerism
the way one might cup the chin
of a lover, the way a God
we only know in mystery
cups what we call home or Earth.
Behold that palette,
the changeable clay orb
despite all which is merciless.
Surely there is innocence
beyond the demonic eyes of gold.
Stephen E. Mead
You Are Sitting in Your Room Again
Your head is
Upside-down on
Your neck, yet
Out the open window
Behind you the railroad
Tracks recede
Neatly to their
Vanishing point
In the clouds.
You grasp a knife
And it’s clear
You’re not above
Anything that others
Might consider
Dirty tricks. You
Gaze here and there
Through peepholes
In the frame
Of night, while
Out the door
A clear day takes
Different paths
To the same
Destination.
Laura Eileen Merleau
For Selwyn
Saw him quietly in the corner
of his train seat
coughing once in awhile
a burp now and then.
Later on I looked beyond his
shuffle, the way
he cradled his hand.
A stroke? the boldness
of my question.
Yes, he answered shyly.
I had one too, and
our friendship began.
Off to Toronto, he says
words tumbling quickly,
to my son’s wedding. I’m from
Yorkshire.
Great country, Canada
and 18 years later still
huge to travel it all.
Tiredness soon captures
his chatty voice,
got to rest he says
as the attendant approached.
Selwyn orders a pillow
and winks, good for hiding
beer farts in the night. Know
something? He’s right.
Tongue of my youth
is a photo-copier of memory
remembers the taste of porridge,
and cod liver oil, spinach too
then corn flakes arrives, scrub ball
in the backyard, even
swimming in leech-filled lakes
now I am subdued in a fast
lane of an Indiana 500 world,
racing kites no longer an option
nor hurrying my canoe
through the slap of summer’s storm.
In the domain of aging years
I am like a voyeur astride roads,
slower in the seasons of life. I am a
trickle of the greater one
I once was.
Richard L. Provencher
Letter to My Long-Term Husband
Written at a writing conference and never sent.
I want you to wait under our Oak trees,
water my tomato plants, pick the last peony
and miss me like Donald Hall misses Jane.
I want you to remember
this isn’t the first time I have left you
And, Honey, remember the body that carried your children,
the breasts that no one else has touched in thirty some years,
my office with its piles of papers
never to be sorted in the way you think right,
my purple clematis brought from the old house,
my grandmother’s thimble,
your mother’s wedding ring in my drawer,
her ashes in the gold and green box on your closet shelf,
the children we almost has, our children,
my hair in the sink, on your brush, your pillow,
the Christmas cactus that was my mother’s,
O, visit my mother she forgot my name Thursday.
Remember the room where we first made love,
the tangled sheets, the slant of sun,
my body young as yours-- remember
I want you to remember, because
if you block my sun again;
I will leave you with the ashes and Oak trees.
This time I really will.
Linda Leedy Schneider
Previously published in:
Not A Muse, The Inner Lives of Women, A World Poetry Anthology (Haven Books, 2009)
And grandma, what sharp teeth you have...
How will you gather your food today;
If you threw a spear in the fridge
Would it hit anything worthwhile?
Have you wondered
What it might be like to wear woad
Into work this week,
And drink mead from the hollowed hoof of a reindeer?
Are those really your friends;
Would you eat the weakest one in winter
And throw their bones to your dog,
If it came to that?
When was the last time
You picked up the phone for joy,
Or felt truly afraid?
If the lights went out for good
What kind of parent would you be then?
What kind of man?
(Could you find your morals in the dark?)
Inside you is another -
Sharper of tooth,
With muscles that twitch -
If you had the will,
You could be at the front of the queue
Right now.
Apples
The voice that bubbled up from deep
Surprised me,
And I had to keep
Blinking at the apples
To make sure they were there.
Fingers roughly took my arm,
Itched a bit to do me harm,
And I had to keep calm by
Blinking at the apples
To make sure they were there.
‘We’re closing up, you’re going home.’
No room for waiting in his tone,
Yet I yearned to be alone,
Blinking at the apples
To make sure they were there.
I felt that
If I moved my feet away
From all the perfect neat
Apples
They would disappear,
And I felt they felt this, too,
And kept me near.
Sid Sherwin
Re-minded
I’m reminded to write what
happens to me.
It happens to be
Bernadette
reminding me from her
book of sonnets written
far and
long ago.
Sounds like a song
blowing in, and because the wind is
calm I hear it
and because the sun is
tempered by leaves
I stay to listen
because the neighbor’s dog stopped
barking to be petted,
being like the rest of us
only more so, or what’s this
sound my pen makes
if not
loving barks?
I question mark.
I scribble sounds
my mind decides on, my mind
the judge
I trust.
Don’t let me down, mind,
I hear my mind
tell me to say,
and I obey.
Home
Why after reading the phrase
“going home” did I
picture a wet, uneven
sidewalk—
that back street
south of the hotel the night
after a rain we
ended up . . .
where?
The rest of the evening’s
forgotten.
Only those moments walking
carefully
to avoid slipping
in the dark, our
arms linked,
excited
to be alive together in a
foreign city
with no sure
destination, no one
whom we knew,
ourselves only
to rely on—
like the first time we
found each other
and discovered,
finally,
we were
comfortable in the world.
Dream Walk Return
In this recurring dream—dream
of a dream, or dreaming
that I dreamt—I’m
leaving here, you, this night, having
decided I will walk
to Chicago, across, first, empty fields but,
then, at a cliff’s edge overlooking
water, no place to
step but through a kitchen,
apologizing to the people whose
children show me their kittens, eyes
still not open; then, continue
through the living room and
out to where there’s
space, finally, a street,
but then remember that it’s
night, moon glistening on dark water,
a canal I need to cross near
oil tanks, tiny lights on top and
refinery metallic superstructures
like in New Jersey childhood, try to
remember how I crossed it last time—
(was there a narrow bridge?) because past
the canal and beyond oil tanks are
city lights, Chicago, though where, what
street, which dim-lit building with steps
climbing to the door—knowing
I don’t live here any more yet
confident that walking long enough
along enough apartments, alleys, streets I’ll
find a door I’ll know is
right to enter.
We haven’t been to the woods lately
Around the bend where two stumps across
from each other
wait for us to come and sit.
It’s not the urban world any longer—
exhaust fumes, buildings, the noise of people.
It’s just us and the trees, the trail, barely marked, curving
deeper into the pine and aspen that crowd out the sky and
give off an intimacy—in the silence
and stillness.
If our blood coursed slowly enough to enable us to
sit for years, we might absorb the stillness
the way our clothes take on the scent of
pine needles and moss.
We might become as silent
as those birds whose movements high up in the
canopy can be detected only
peripherally.
Minimally
Sitting here with music, slippers
off, and the coaster of Goya’s
“maja desnuda”
on the coffee table.
Windy outside, though sunny.
Jill went away, but just a while.
I’ve seen hardly any friends
lately. Time just
passes, and you notice.
The sheet music
on the piano
open and ready
to have someone play,
the way the day
passes, looking bright and pretty for
anyone
to notice.
Even at night it’s
pleasant on the eyes, though
bright only under streetlights
or those rows of
Christmas lights
outside some restaurants, such as the fancy
burger place where you got fixings
for yourself
but has now become
Italian, and so
we don’t like it—
although some things do
stay the same, the look
out the window,
for example—blue
past the junipers and parts of
roofs and walls
of houses. Sometimes
a car passes, adding
motion. People need so little
to make life
worthwhile.
Joseph Somoza
Kicking Sand in the Face of Indolence
It sits, like a wet cotton ball.
Covered with dust, hair,
and false starts.
Hours have dropped from the clock,
the insolent wind has carried them away.
But time still goes, and goes, and goes.
The cotton ball? It lies, it lies,
it stays put. Festered. Festering.
Willful, but left without device.
What’s been muddied in the mind of it?
How many tires have squealed by
and yet it does not flinch?
It is restless, waiting for a wave to crash,
to wash away the washed-up rhetoric
which convinced it it had nothing left to say.
To leave its dead crab countenance
on the shore of this black-ink sea—
And my brand new feet come by
and kick on it the white sands.
To cover it. To bury it.
To see it dead, and something new arise.
Jason Sturner
Warning (or The Martian Chronicles)
He came in a metal thing that glittered in the sun.
~Ray Bradbury
Not ice storms. Not thunderstorms.
Not monsoons, tornadoes, or snowstorms.
Solar storms, they don’t bother me.
Maybe it’s because the radio says buy
water in jugs or cans of baked beans
and THIS IS A WARNING FROM YOUR…
Sirens circle every fifteen minutes
but nothing ever touches down.
The red banner announces: no work,
no school, the city has surrendered
to the chaos of snowflakes and ice.
River water climbs into fields, roads,
a university. All of us swallowed by rain.
Maybe I should shudder or sob
or carry cyanide in a hollow tooth
or get in the car real quick and drive
for that one thing I’m going to need
when the electric lines loop through the garden
and drape on the neighbor’s swing-set.
Even now I watch the trees gutter
and the wind tongues the house.
I can almost hear the words, something like:
The Martians have landed. You’re free.
After Watching a Martian Marathon on Cable
I don’t know what Martians eat. They might eat
potatoes or human caviar. I don’t know
what they wear to dances or how they move
their limbs in gravity or if beats propel them
to sway, gyrate, and touch. I don’t know
what I’d do if Martians arrived at my door
or melted through the walls or crawled inside
me, turning me into a them. If they called,
I’d probably not answer because of the number,
thinking it was that automated voice
to tell me, again, my warrantee is about to expire,
when I know my 1991 car doesn’t even start.
If area 51 and Roswell are big lies, I don’t know,
or Devil’s Tower or boys on bicycles who fly
mid-air with one in a crate. I don’t know
if they abduct us to cut into our inner worlds.
The Trouble with Martians is They Don’t Fit In
On the playground, they’re the ones in the sandbox
full of cat turds. In the office, no birthday cards
decorate their cubicles, and at lunch, they sit alone
by the microwave. At parties, they’re not spaced-out
wallflowers. They’re the cluster of green bodies
gyrating ahead or behind the beat. They’re in line
for the cash bar and clasp half drunk domestics.
They’re the few who sidle up and make small talk
with the neurotic seven grade school teacher
or the nurse who covers the nightshift at the ER.
The problem is, wherever they congregate, the humans
disperse like roaches caught in 5 AM kitchen light.
Enemy Mine
Though the film isn’t set on Mars, the Martians tremble.
They ask, why the humans shoot missiles at enemy ships,
why the explosion of a vessel promotes cheers, why
the only woman of color in the whole movie incinerates
within the first five minutes. They fidget over death scenes,
over crash landings, over the pistol, knife, and laser gun.
They ooh and ahh at the crescent moons, the meteor showers,
at the landscape of red. They whisper to each other, Home.
The Martians Order
new shoes. Six pairs
of sandals arrive
in pastel and brass
with cork foot beds.
Their three-toed feet
slip inside to test
the hallway catwalk.
Galoshes appear
in another box.
Rubber knee-highs
that suction
to the linoleum.
The Martians giggle,
and dash into the rain
to puddle jump
slugs and night crawlers
aligned on the sidewalk
like trails of falling stars.
Laura Madeline Wiseman
Noam Baruch lives in San Francisco, CA. He is currently attending the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in the Creative Writing program.
Clive Birnie lives in Portishead in SW England. He has recently had poems published in Popshot and Snakeskin Magazines.
Christine Brandel is a British-American writer from the East Midlands and the Midwest. She currently teaches writing at a community college in Indiana. She believes that Everyone Needs an Algonquin.
Edgar Bagayan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in November of 1984. He moved near Burbank studios over by Toluca Lake at a young age, and has since then, for better or for worse, remained there. As a raw youth, he enjoyed reading the Russians and the French. Nevsky Prospect lingered in his dreams but for a more practical option he majored in English at The University. He's not sure but he thinks he should read 1984 all over again. His poetry has appeared in a couple online anthologies, which he later found out were scams. He currently spends his time playing chess, watching films set in the underbelly of Copenhagen, and hopes to one day work up the nerve to skydive.
Rachel Flynn is 18 years old and at Colby-Sawyer College for creative writing. She has been writing for most of her life and has gone to writing conferences (including the Iowa Young Writer's Studio) to help with her writing. Though she likes mostly fiction, she loves poetry and have been published in her high school's literary magazine and on teenink.com.
Robert Furness is a poet, living in London. He is 43 years of age and works as a Primary School Teacher. He likes to write about themes related to childhood, specifically those that relate to his own in Ireland.
Ben Gehrels writes to make writing matter. He has been published in magazines such as All Rights Reserved, ditch, and The Antigonish Review. He is a graduate of
Michele K. Johnson will be entering her senior year at St. Mary's College of Maryland in Southern Maryland. Another poem of her poems will be published in the forthcoming fifth volume of the Ampersand Review. Michele loves writing about things in a way that surprises people and helps them to look at something familiar in a different way. Besides writing, she loves rock climbing and cooking. Michele is currently mulling over pursuing an advanced degree in creative writing.
Samantha Knapp is a student at Hofstra University, graduating this May. She is an English-Literature and Creative Writing major, with a poetry concentration and have been writing for over ten years. Samantha's work was featured in Hofstra's literary magazine, Font, and as a featured poet on "Calliope's Corner" radio program. She is taking next year off to contemplate her future and decide between academia or law.
Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, and maker of short collage-films living in NY. His latest Amazon.com release, “Our Book of Common Faith”, a poetry/art hybrid which explores world cultures and religions in hopes of finding what bonds humanity as opposed to divides.
Laura Aileen Merleau was born and grew up in the Kansas City area and received a doctoral degree in American Literature from the University of Kansas in 2000. Her novella Little Fugue was published by Woodley Memorial Press in 1992. Her poetry has recently been accepted for publication in Rougarou, Poppyseed Kolache, and Ragazine. An excerpt from Laura Aileen's novel Blood Sugar Jezebel has been accepted for publication with The Survivor Chronicles.
Ron Ogilvie is a member of the Deal Writers Group in Kent. Ron is a Scot by birth but has been out of Scotland since 1984. He is a husband and father and trained as a scientist. He now works in the pharmaceutical industry. Ron has been writing poetry since he was a lad and has grown in confidence since joining the group in Deal in 2008. 'Horses' is a recent piece, written on Islay in the Hebrides in August 2009.
Richard L. Provencher was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. His writing combines a love of the outdoors with contemporary issues. Many years ago, his dad once said, ‘Don’t spend so much time in the woods, you’ll turn into a tree.’ Richard believes writing is a global adventure in a land without borders. He has work in Hudson View, Short Story Library, Ottawa Arts Review, and others. Richard and his wife, Esther, live in Truro, Nova Scotia.
Joseph Somoza was born in Spain and grew up in New Jersey and Chicago. He received an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1973 and moved to New Mexico the same year, where he taught at New Mexico State and was poetry editor for PUERTO DEL SOL. He's published 4 chapbooks and 4 full books of poetry, the most recent book being SHOCK OF WHITE HAIR (Sin Fronteras Press, 2007). He lives in Las Cruces with wife Jill, a painter.
Linda gives readings often and was recently featured at The Saturn Poetry Series, East Village NYC. The Back Fence, NYC, The Bowery Poetry Club, NYC, Peter Chelnik’s Prairie Fire Series, NYC and The Print Gallery, Southfield Michigan sponsored by Springfed Arts: Detroit Metro Writers. Linda believes that a regular writing ritual leads to authenticity, personal growth and even JOY.
Sid Sherwin has worked at thirty jobs in the last fifteen years but the writing is the glue that holds it all together. He has nearly finished first novel but is primarily a poet who also likes to perform. He lives in rural Dorset which is not all bucolic and lamb-lovely (but it suits him).
Geoff Stevens was born on the 4th June, 1942, at West Bromwich, in the industrial midlands of England that is known as The Black Country. It was at that time a mixture of industrial, post-industrial, and countryside in minature, a unique rich admixture.
He was initially a successful pupil at school, but his later schooling was for boys only, operated six days a week, and was both constrictive and restrictive, and he rebelled against it.
On leaving, he got a job as an industrial chemist and studied part-time for academic qualifications. Chemistry was to be his occupation until 1995, and he worked in the chemical manufacturing, paint making, electroplating, bicycle, and closure industries.
Local history and custom was also an interest and he began to write about those and on other subjects for journals and newspapers, and also became Director of Industrial Archaeology for The Black Country Society.
In the 1970's, inspired by local versifiers, and then by reading Dylan Thomas, he began to write poetry and to submit it to magazines, until he was eventually succesful in getting it published. He also began a long interest in reading poetry in public
1976 saw the inception of his own poetry magazine, Purple Patch, which passed its 100th. edition in June 2001 and celebrated its 30th. year in 2006
Other magazines he has edited are Purple Pastiche (poetry and art), S-Fest Ltd. (U.K. Editor of U.S.Lit mag.), Micropress Midlands Poetry, and one guest issue of South magazine.
He was a founder member of Spouting Forth poetry performance and publication group in the 90's and, with Brendan Hawthorne, started the Poetry Wednesbury group of poets in 2002.