Lummox 3

Number Three • 2014

John Sweet wins

Desir e

the 1st Lummox

Poetry Prize!

170 Poets

in this issue Interviews: John Macker Rick Smith Doug Gr aceHolder Cavalieri Gr ace Holder Cavalieri Doug Daniel McGinn

Essays: The View from Down Here A Bouquet Dropped on Laur a Nelson’s Gr ave Just Another Word My Life in a Book The Fine Art of Revision The First Non-poet Anthology The Poem in Public Canadian Poetry

Reviews: Mir ages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin 1939-1947 A Shot Across the Bow Relics of Lust Songs of the Glue Machines What the Wind Says

RoadKill

LUMMOX number three Š2014 Lummox Press All rights revert to the contributors upon publication.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the express written permission of the editor, except in the case of written reviews.

ISBN 978-1-929878-59-8 First edition

PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733 www.lummoxpress.com/lc/

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgements Some of these poems have been previously published; all credits are cited at the end of each poem or poems. The Editor-in-Chief gratefully acknowledges the wisdom of all the previous editors who saw the value in these poems.

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Number Three / 2014

Number T hree Desire/RoadKill Edited by RD Armstrong

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“Poetry is important, the poet is not” Octavio Paz Editor-in-Chief

RD Armstrong Art Director

Chris Yeseta Published by

LUMMOX Press P.O. Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733-5301 www.lummoxpress.com/lc/ Submission Guidelines Micro and flash fiction, novel extracts will be considered but it must be high quality material, inquire before sending. Essays on poetics, biographies, and the craft of writing, along with well written rants will also be considered, along with interviews. Articles that are topical in nature will be considered as well.

Additionally, art work will be considered as long as it is conducive to a B&W format. Mostly, LUMMOX is about poetry, so send your best.

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The Guidelines: Send 3 poems via email. Poems should not exceed 60 lines (including blank lines—single spaced) and should not be formatted. Previously published poetry is fine, just let us know where. Please attach a 6 line bio (bios that are a paragraph long will be edited).

Reading period for the annual issue will be from April 1st to May 31st. Please send subs via poetraindog@gmail.com in the message window (attachments will not be opened, unless I know you). If snail mail is necessary, then send to LUMMOX c/o PO Box 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301 Ad Rates: • Full Page (6″x8″)—$200; • Half Page (6″x3.875″)—$150; • 1/4 Page (2.875″x3.875″)—$80; • 1/8 Page (2.875″x1.875″)—$45.

• Friends of LUMMOX get 25% off all ad sizes.

Number Three / 2014

N um b e r T h r e e / 2 014

RD Armstrong – Head Lummox Chris Yeseta – Art Direction & Layout Janne K arlson – Cartoon Artist Richard A. Loederer –Cover Artist ©1935

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The view from down here About This Issue by RD Armstrong—10

DESIRE Michael Adams—You Have To Be Willing—16 Linda Albertano—Night Stalking Armadillo—17 Alisha Attella—You and Me in the City—18 Shawn Aveningo—Reasons—19 Dane Baylis—Noticing—20 Linda Benninghoff—Success and Failure—21 Byron Beynon—The Couple—21 Barbara Blatner—fact is—22 Brenton Booth—Seeing Her—22 Lynne Bronstein—Slow Music from the Next Room—23 Ronnie Brown—Siren Song—23 Don Kingfisher Campbell—Diurnal Love—24 Valentina Cano—Kore, In Summer—24 Fern Carr—Horizontal Haiku—24 Wolf Carstens—Untitled—25 Grace Cavalieri—TIDE FLOW EBB—26

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Contents Maura Cavell—How We Meet the Rain—27 James Cihlar —Alice—28 Todd Cirillo—The Generosity of Strangers—28 Ann Clarke—Lady Seeks Macbeth—28 Wanda Clevenger—Under the Bleachers—29 Jeanette Clough—Heist—29 Blair Cooper—Desert Desire—30 Ann Curran—Streetcar Date—30 James Deahl—Pegasus Rising—30 Liz Dolan—What I Meant to Say—31 Trista Dominque—Working Class Blue—31 Robert Eisenhart—Rita—32 Alexis Rhone Fancher—LA PETITE MORT—32 Dennis Formento—Anselm’s great aunt’s song from the other side:—33 Gerald Garcia—California June Gloom…—34 Katherine Gordon—What Bird Should I Talk To—35 Ryan Guth—FIVE KNIVES FOR TONY—35 Katherine Hamilton—Desire…—36 Dianna Henning—Needing Bread—36 Allan Kaplan—Off season, the barmaid concocts an exotic cocktail for her boyfriend—36 Gary Kay—Diet—36 Lalo Kikiriki—the common dreamscape of desire—37 Marie Kilroy—What Other Light—37 Ron Koertge—Sky-Vu Drive In—38 Brent Leake—Wishing—38 John B. Lee—into a land of strangers—39 Bernice Lever—Not Enough—40 Lyn Lifshin—THE MARGARITAS—40 Norma Linder—Skydiver—41 Jane Lipman — Love in the Peace Movement—41 Ellaraine Lockie—She Reads Virginia Woolf—42 Radomir V. Luza—Loved—43 Amy MacLennan—New—44 Ellyn Maybe—Photograph—45 Terry McCarty—Poem Inspired By Iconic Movie—45 Mary McGinnis—Pluto Waiting—46 Michael Meloan—Nu-Pike—46 Elaine Mintzer—Pomegranate—47 Michael Mirolla—Poem Found (Or Industrialized Love)—47 Danielle Mitchell—Assembling The Brother—48 Mark Mitchell—NEAR MISS—48 Lois Nanstais—become—49 Robbi Nester—Evolution—49 Barbra Nightingale—Wolf Moon—50

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Carl Palmer—lounge lizard—50 Michael Paul—I Could Never Keep Up With Him—51 Simon Perchik—*—51 Bob Perkins—Autoerotica—52 M.P. Powers—DUENDE—53 Ester Prudlo—I AM LOVED—54 Mitch Rayes—DESIRE—55 Kevin Ridgeway—Dollar Store Barbie—55 Denis Robillard—Hotel Montreal—56 Judith Robinson—Roses—57 David Roskos—the moon is defunct—57 Walter Ruhlmann—Your Dragon Needs Slaying—58 Patricia Scruggs—Verdigris—58 Aftab Yusuf Shaikh—By The Window Of A Chugging Train—59 Nancy Shiffrin—Out of the Garden—60 Katie Simpson—Somewhere—61 Linda Singer—Revival—62 Judith Skillman—Felice Ponders—62 Wanda Smith—BARFLY—63 Ken Stange—Body Language—64 Winnie Lee Star—Fasten Your Seat Belt, Darlin’—65 Julia Stein—Why You?—65 Kevin Sullivan—ONE WORD—66 Patti Sullivan—NOT LOOKING—66 Lynn Tait—Stigmata—67 G. Murray Thomas—WINTER—67 H Lamar Thomas—Expressing God, The Moon Awakes—68 Tim Tipton—Late Night Breathing—68 Susan Topping (Silver)—HEADING THAT WAY—69 Vachine—Combustion—70 Eduardo del Valle—The Sign—70 Alias Velaj—A SONG—71 Kari Wergeland—Festooned Gravel—71 Linda Whittenberg—Mad for Color—72 Kit Zak—Daughter’s Dance—73

THE BRIDGE I Edward Jamieson, Jr.—Sometimes I Feel More the Whore than—74 Raundi K. Moore-Kondo—Wake up!—74 John Macker—Villon—75

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Contents

INTERVIEWS Grace Cavalieri interviewed by RD Armstrong—76 Doug Holder interviewed by RD Armstrong—79 Poetry Contest Winners John Sweet; William Taylor, Jr.; Christina Foskey—82 John Macker interviewed by John Wizniewski—88 Daniel McGinn interviewed by RD Armstrong—92 Rick Smith interviewed by RD Armstrong—96

THE BRIDGE II Lucille Gang Shulklapper—Desire—100 Tom Thomas—First Date—100 Grace Vermeer—Return to the First Garden—101

ROAD KILL Ron Alexander—Starter’s Block—102 Matt Amott—DEAR JOHN—103 Cynthia Anderson—Ever After—103 RD Armstrong—She Adores Me—104 Kim Baker—April Fool—105 Robert Baker—Here’s Help Against All Odds—106 Michael Basinski—The Toads—107 Heather Browne—Red Goose—107 B.J. Buckley—Rose, Raven: A Valentine—108 Peggy Carter—That Perfect Curve—108 Alan Catlin—Road Kill and Ironweed—108 Ann Cefola—For a Coyote Crossing Route 10—109 Benny Coles—Jealousy—109 Ed Coletti—Much More Than Roadkill—110 Sharyl Collin—About an Apple—111 Corey Cook—The End—112 Garret Crowe—Fundamentals—113 Cassandra Dallett—The Search—114 Eric Dickey—Funereal—115 William Doreski—Your Drawings for a Dollar Each—116 R.M. Englehart—Epitaph for,—117

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Joseph Farina—springtime at the roadkill café—118 Joseph Farley—Roadkill—118 Carlton Fisher—Dancing Fire—119 Mark A. Fisher—Freeway Ends—120 Alex M. Frankel—Winter Gathering of the Unsuccessful—121 Bill Gainer—A Bum in Reno—122 Joe Gardner—ROMANS ON THE HIWAY—122 Jeffrey Graessley—An Announcement of Morning—123 Rasma Haidri—Omen—123 Gary Hanna—War—124 Lois M Harrod—Crow With Salt—124 David Haskins—A Potter’s Ossuary—125 Stash Hempeck—PERFUME—125 Duane Herrmann—FAMILY TABLEAU—125 Debbie Okun-Hill—The Plight of Wildlife Artists—126 Leanne Hunt—Echolocation: A Compass for Drowning—127 M.J. Iuppa—A Winning Hand—127 George Q Johnson Jr.—Port Of Stockton Saturday Morning—128 Frank Kearns—Desert Roads—128 James Ph Kotsybar—Flat Meat Diner—128 Laurie Kruk—The Season of Killing Mice and Stabbing Pumpkins—129 Justin Langford—THAT OLD THORN BUSH—130 Robert Lanphar—Roadkill Dessert—131 Laura Munoz-Larbig—Love Hurts—131 Kyle Laws—After Introduction By Charles Eakin—132 Frances LeMoine—she’ll smoke menthols now—133 Linda Lerner—The Wild West Comes East on Citibank bikes—134 Gerald Locklin—the days go awry—135 Justin Luzader—i. Recollected Phone Transcript:—136 Jenny McBride—STILL WARM—137 Daniel McGinn—Sad Song—137 Joseph D. Milosch—Saturday Landscape—138 Tony Moffeit—i am the poem never written—139 Ivan de Monbrison—morceau d’homme—140 Ian Mullens—Tailback—140 Christopher Mulrooney—Bughouse—140 Evan Myquest—The Modern Pit and Pendulum—141 Benjamin Newell—my poems got lucky—142 normal—Morning Coffee—142 Terrance Oberst—On The Final Loss Of My Beloved—143 Al Ortolani—Thursday Morning—144 Jeff Parks—Is Road Kill Seasonal—144 Lorine Parks—falling in love again—145 Richard K. Perkins II—Roadside Cross—146

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Contents Robert Plath—Vertical Roadkill—146 Robert Rodriguez—Collision—147 Natasha Romanova (Romamza)—Untitled—147 Eric Paul Shaffer—Of Owls and Sugar Cane—148 Rick Smith—One Night In Pasadena—149 Mary E. Talley—imprint of bird on window—149 Charles Thielmann—Shipping and Receiving—150 Judith Toler—Roadside—151 AJ Urquidi—Her Bildung—152 Lawrence Welsh—Black 47—153 Jackson Wheeler—On Seeing a Painting by Van Gogh…—154 Phil Woods—The Kingdom Of Sadness—155 John Yamrus—Untitled—156

ESSAYS Canadian Poetry in 2014 by James Deahl—158 My Life in a Book by Lucille Gang Shulklapper—162 A Bouquet Dropped on Laura Nelson’s Grave by Daniel McGinn—165 Just Another Word For Plagiarism by Linda Lerner—169 The Poem in Public by Ellaraine Lockie—170 The First “No School” Anthology of Los Angeles Poets by Bill Mohr—171 The Fine Art of Revision by Judith Skillman—176 Failure (musings about art) by Norman J. Olson—178

REVIEWS A Shot Across the Bow by RD Armstrong—181 The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin 1939-1947 by Nancy Shiffrin—185 Relics of Lust reviewed by Bill Gainer—187 Songs of the Glue Machines reviewed by Joseph Gardner—188 What the Wind Says reviewed by Angela C. Mankiewicz—190

BIOS Contributors to LUMMOX #3—192

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the view from down here About This Issue

I

t’s hard to believe that I have been at this for over 20 years. I remember when I got my first computer; back in ’94…it was fantastic! I wrote 300 poems in the first 2 years, another 100 poems over the next two years, and so on and so on, until now where I might write 10 a year. What caused this drop in output you ask? I’m not sure but I think it might have something to do with my increased output of published work (both mine and others).

Publishing other people’s work was fun in the beginning, a delightful distraction! But that didn’t last long. Soon I was treating it like a business, learning how to keep books, pay out royalties, mail out orders.

And as this new business went up, my poetry went down, exponentially.

Ironically, now I find my own energy is going down as LUMMOX Press wants to go up. And since I am LUMMOX Press, this presents an odd situation. I’m slowing down; physically, mentally, emotionally even sexually…it’s all breaking down, I’m breaking down.

And yet, the desire to keep on going, the curiosity, the testing, these are indications of a certain mental acuity, of an intellectuality. But I am still handicapped by the problems with my short-term memory…I have become absent minded!

Something is wrong…which gives me a certain urgency, a desire to finish the job before it finishes me. I can’t imagine life without the LUMMOX, but there may come a time when I won’t have that choice. I don’t want to end up as a slobbering old fool, alone at some countyrun senior citizen dump site, being abused by somebody who is bored, and maybe just a bit mad, too.

But with any luck, I will still be writing something!

I have to mention that my “career” as a writer didn’t begin in 1993, nor did my career

as a publisher start in ‘95. The photo (below) of the faded sheets of paper is actually my second attempt at a publication (circa 1970); my first being “The Scarlet Lizard” which was published in 1969, but of which I have no copies. BTW kids, these were called Underground Newspapers. Mine started out on a mimeograph, a process where you have a template (like carbon paper) that was either hand-cut or typed on. The template was placed on a roller and then it was inked and paper was fed into it and as it passed by the roller, the

paper would get printed on. Then each page had to dry before the other side could be printed. It was a lot of work but it was also exciting to put out a paper and we, the staff (the staff being three core students), really enjoyed it…plus we thought we were doing something that mattered.

We were agitators for change. We were a burr under the saddle of the admin boys. In fact, one issue of the Lizard got me suspended (I never did understand what the suspension was for exactly), but it was a very short suspension. I didn’t even make it home from school before the principal came and fetched me back to his office where I was to wait until my mom could pick me up after school was out. Oh yeah, I was a real bad ass back then…suspended for all of 3 hours! Oooh, hardcore!

Times have changed. Back in the 60s, it was

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Desire You Have To Be Willing To Be Ridden In Order To Be Rode I need you tonight, boys. Please, play it bluesmen, give me some dirty South, soul stealing riff over the bass line where she finds herself open to the sickness.

Drums drive a gut-rattle high hat and lightning flam snare.

In some bar on Beale, flat beer and a house band people love, the last cigarette in a pack burns to filter in the ashtray.

Y’all call that train back to Memphis.

I’ll buy your beers if you teach me how to shine my soul in Mississippi dirt.

An old bum wails in the empty street. A warm breeze blows off the river, kicks cans through Confederate Park.

Smoke rolls out of every mouth and nostril.

Water beads on cold beer and in the small of her back. The hem of her dress rises. Her thighs goose pimple. It’s got a hold on her. It’s got a hold on me. It’s got a hold on me.

Michael Adams Memphis, TN

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Night Stalking Armadillo Trust me.

I sped from NASA at a rate of 7 corpuscle-crushing gravities for you wearing an adult diaper with a pair of pistols strapped to my hips.

Ah, hahahahaha!

You’re #1 on my thrill list, Babe.

Trust me.

For purposes of National Security I gotta hold you in extra-sensory confinement.

I must execute an extensive exploration of your top-secret mystery parts. All this probing.

Are Martians at the controls here? Yet, no one expects the Inquisition.

It won’t be long now.

Oooops…

It was an accident! Just cleaning my drone, Hon, when it went off.

Ooooo.

You throttle my thrusters.

Bad (!)

Sorry.

Trust me.

Trust me.

You shoulda stood your ground!

Linda J. Albertano Venice, CA

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You and Me in the City You and me step out into the city walking fast through the black asphalt sea down past the liquor store, and library and hobby shop.

I’ve got one tiny hand safe in each of my palms.

I read my heart and life lines with your tiny thumbs and concentrate hard, launching us through the wonderland of detritus straight into our daily campaign to discover the leaves in the pages and match them to the leaves in the trees.

We shimmer through the park imagining that the homeless men are Rip Van Winkle The empty Cheetos bags and Micky’s bottles building blocks for a fairy city constructed by hard working ants and gadflies heading to the Office Bar just down the steps from our apartment with the dark green carpets -for future wealth they said.

When we’re home tonight Your little hands will slide under flat pillows and I’ll stand in the exact center My head turning back and forth back and forth singing the best incantation to send you off to a peaceful sleep before my own fantasy begins for the evening and I open the door for that Knight in Shining Armor who never stays the night but sometimes leaves little white baggies under my own flat pillow to wake me up fast and remind me of my busted-hinge chest full of curled dollar bills To remind me of the heat-sick asphalt heat waves, and neon burned liquor store, and cellophane library encampment, and boarded up hobby shop doors To remind me of the bleach marks on the dark green misfortune of the carpets To remind me of where we truly are.

Alisha Attella Long Beach, CA

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REASONS

Because her cocktail was laced and her blouse was unbuttoned.

Because the house wasn’t cleaned and she spent too much on Jimmy Choos.

Because the other men held her down.

Because if she doesn’t give it up more often, he’ll cum too quick.

Because he had cash and a warm car when her pockets and belly were empty.

Because she ordered the lobster and she needed him to like her.

Because she was feeling so fucking alone.

She dreamed that just once she was in control,

not guilty, ashamed, afraid, or expected.

That it was her thirst quenched, her desire sated.

Just once, she’d keep her eyes open with

screams of unbridled bliss, and Oh….

It would be for all the right reasons.

Retronaut

Shawn Aveningo Beaverton, OR

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NOTICING Sweating away a whole day Half-a-dozen good ideas Into the sunshine ugly San Fernando afternoon.

Noticing a dress Barely covering A so-short lace dress That was probably uncomfortable On the plaster mannequin That wore it last.

Noticing her hands…Moving Moving to hide Only making her more naked With their movements.

Whispering hands over lace Hissing Look…Hear And…Here And…(embarrassed, tentative hands) Even here.

Moving The long…Naked…Minutes It takes to cross the street A vast blushing eternity Then edging through clustered tuxedoes A tightening black and white noose Full of eyes Crawling on her skin Itchier than lace Eyes Bloodless eyes Scuttling through Fingers…Fabric…A shadow of pubic hair.

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Her boyfriend smiling WIDE Opens the car door WIDE Letting her be seen WIDE Struggling the dress On to imported Corinthian leather So much meat Waved in front of a hungry dog world.

Noticing The same ugly sun Shines indifferently Through the San Fernando afternoon And sacrificial lace dresses.

Noticing The light pouring across Perfectly ugly smiles Stained with truth’s blood.

Some women will endure Any savagery So long as it’s committed In a red, Italian sports car.

Dane Baylis Camarillo, CA

Success and Failure When you were alive, we traveled out rarely, carefully, spending little money, as if we knew we were not just the sum of our successes.

And I like to think of us like that, in the evening hearing voices of people and cats at the window, as if these voices reach down to us, the way the flock of doves at my mailbox seems to come from heaven even now, when you are not here, shaving the creases of their wings against the edges of trees, the blurred leaves, the burning spring.

Linda Benninghoff Huntington, NY

THE COUPLE I can hear the couple in the hotel room next to mine making love, through a slim starved wall the woman’s breathlessness teases the uncontrollable swell of air.

These two lovers of rising desire play together in a foreign capital, ignore the afternoon gloom of dark clouds, taste instead their own sweetness, enjoy the full-length naked dish of delights that greet their personal senses with an animal and human richness.

I celebrate the invisible embrace feeding the relationship of atmosphere which crackles with warm moods.

A flame of relish for making pleasure, the art of untamed bodies which hotly caress residing as one within hidden spaces.

Byron Beynon Swansea, Wales

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fact is I stare out your kitchen window at green-black mountain swelling above back yard fields and orchards. near the summit’s stony escarpment before the vertical scar cut through trees for telephone wire, a hawk is flying. and I’m thinking: it doesn’t matter that you neglected us got drunk at us charmed us divided us against each other. we love you terribly, the eye of love’s ever sharper now that you lie in bed in your room at the end of the hall dying. we’re bound to you like that hawk to her hunger, we hunt your love we circle we shadow

SEEING HER

Her sad eyes draw me in she has been alone for too long as well face grown hard from disappointment spirit well bruised from no luck, she tells me about her latest film about the trapped child inside us all: I want to hold her hand I want to kiss her I want to tell her I have been looking for her for years: my saviors— both our saviors two vagabonds together at last, I freeze and tell her about a new story she sees herself in my face: we are both afraid.

Brenton Booth Elizabeth Bay, Australia

Barbara Blatner NY, NY Previously published in The Still Position - A Verse Memoir of my Mother’s Death (New York Quarterly Books, 2010)

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Slow Music from the Next Room He put me to bed in his other room Tiny, with a red light hung from the ceiling, And I woke up in the warmth Of the convertible couch To see the pale pink Of the Santa Barbara dawn.

I’d fallen asleep to his slow Ragtime piano playing, And all night slept well But remembered he slept next door.

Ours was the dream Of two strangers passing, Stopping at a road cross, Exchanging a look, Of knowing the sorrows Exactly the same, How in the last year Both of us in our separate habitats Had become secret TV watchers, Quietly waiting and working, Caught between loves And refusing the one-night cure.

We chatted about our loneliness And literature And split-fountain printing And went to bed Like bears hibernating in separate caves Because it was not yet spring.

SIREN SONG “...til human voices wake us...”

—T.S. Eliot

Sensuous, with just a hint of drawl, his words, edged with innuendo, draw her in and, suddenly, she knows how ancient sailors felt when they heard the Sirens’ song. She walks in circles, winding the telephone cord around her. Binding herself to her safe world, feeling, all the while, the only thing she truly wants is to let herself go--even though she’s sure that if she does, she will, most probably, drown.

Ronnie R. Brown Ottawa, Ont, Canada

But I woke up early to see the clear dawn And cried a few tears on The clean embroidered pillow, Wishing I were almost Too ravishing to resist Or that I’d be knowing him better by staying.

Lynne Bronstein Van Nuys, CA number Three / 2014 •

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Diurnal Love

in the morning one of us has to kiss the other before we go out into the world of car accidents workplace shootings police brutality

when we get home in the late afternoon we have to buss just to be glad we made it back to our domicile of homemade dinner high speed internet in two languages

night is the best because we take off the day’s clothes lie together in bed turn to press lips in the dark sometimes become animals then hold on like twins in a womb waiting to be born again by sunlight Don Kingfisher Campbell Alhambra, CA

Kore, In Summer She rounds out her bouquets with pomegranate flowers and stuffs her bra with cotton balls.

She is a woman of green shoots, pollen skin, and she moves in the summer breeze like a sheet on a clothesline.

Valentina Cano Miami, FL

Horizontal Haiku passionate union a tangle of arms and legs unopened condom Fern G. C. Carr Kelowna, BC CAN.

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Janne Karlson

Wolf Carstens Edmonton, ALB. CAN

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TIDE

FLOW

EBB

I was afraid you’d dash off like a hero and not look back you’d die with the sinew of something left unsaid I was afraid I’d cry at Jiffy Lube I was afraid of your empty shirts hanging from the spine of their hangers Or that I’d move the quiver of truth the way I wanted I was afraid of losing my balance, a broken sparrow at the stairs I saw the edge of your shadow from the corner of my eye I was afraid of the space after “What else do I have to do, but be with you?”

I was afraid I’d forget how you looked I was afraid of the first car crash, broken tools, my first flat tire I was afraid to see you put into your final cement home Now, I’m not afraid of anything.

Grace Cavalieri Washington, D. C. Poets & Artists: Fixation 2014

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Retronaut

How We Meet the Rain Gray sky; you sip your drink as rain falls at an angle, heavy, solid seeming.

with the depths of wine, the color of blue Hawaiians, your fingers, your mouth,

You are the rain hiding me, covering me, claiming me, your mustache tickling, teasing.

your turning me, bringing me to a buttery sensation, moisture,

You move between with artist strokes painting me into rain; somewhere fortune’s wheel turned, and we shifted with it;

your skin glistening under my touch, the rain moving to the echo of our love sounds;

you’ve swirled through me and I blend into, melt into you, the sound of the rain; and we’ve been transported

you shift inside and are fresh, close, bodies together, skin meeting skin, silky, the rain sounding

by chance magic.

You changed me with your smile, your light, your eyes

like sand hitting the roof, the window. You lean in further, deeper.

We scream each other’s names as we come to the edge, meeting the rain.

Maura Gage Cavell Crowley, LA

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Alice Not to be alone.

Everyday with you alive is a better day.

James Cihlar Saint Paul, MN

The Generosity of Strangers

From five barstools down, she winked at me and raised her glass in some secret toast.

When her drink was gone she called the bartender over, ordered herself another, winked at me again, and sent a shot and a beer my way-She pointed to the guy sitting next to her, talking loudly about football with his buddies, and said, “put it on his tab,” then blew a kiss from her barstool to mine.

Todd Cirillo New Orleans, LA

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Lady Seeks Macbeth Not that I want some man to wind up with ambition or corrupt, verbally abuse, and damn.

Of course not.

Nor a man whose heart I can turn to slate, hard, sharp, brittle, and whose hands I can sink wrist deep in blood to prove his love.

But, I confess, a man who can dissect his own heart, philosophizing all the while, mourning the damage before it’s done yet doing the damage, and speaking such poetry might be worth a few nights of sleepwalking madness.

If I could only hear his general pronouncement on life after my death, I might trade tomorrow and tomorrow for some poetry tonight.

Ann Clarke Dexter, NY

Under the Bleachers Catching up was all― who’s dissing whom with over-inflated dodge balls until one ego goes home mad while we hide under the bleachers reliving the fun days when ping-ponging amateur reviews, tit for tat; and you were always a tit man catching up we called it―this anti-valentine all grown up now, we two and our words, too mature for Freudian foreplay, I say; you agree, slipping a sneaky hand up my sweater.

Wanda Morrow Clevenger Hettick, IL Published in Speech Therapy Poetry Zine – February 2012

Heist As if from the corner of the boxer’s ring I want to know what matters to you because the same thing matters to me.

The lines that float across your face, for instance. Your private plans for shelter.

Favorite textures and shirts. I want to know them --the kind of softness you prefer

against your skin. Not smooth, but with a nap whose weft rests there easily if you let it. I am not smooth. Consider: we are matched strands of twine tied into a knot.

Which of your ridges shall I caress first?

Which shall I save until last?

You must tell me, while I thieve your body.

Jeanette Clough Santa Monica, CA From the author’s collection, Flourish (Tebot Bach, 2014)

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Desert Desire We walked together you and I Across the desert choosing our paths Between thorny bushes, avoiding cactus as we watched for snakes warming reptile blood on flat rocks in the sun or hidden out of sight beneath mesquite.

Dangerous decisions perhaps, but the sky was deep cobalt and the sun warm on our faces.

Three falcons rode air currents above, swallowed up by the blue for moments, then from the unseen gliding into view.

I fell into a hole for searching the sky, pulled my foot free, shook away earth, and followed you down a dry river bed.

Blair Cooper Santa Fe, NM

Streetcar Date I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup— short , older brother of a high school friend.

Killer blue eyes, a scratchy wool jacket.

I don’t remember where we went or why.

There on the last seat of the clanging car I oozed with hormones screaming with desire.

Don’t recall what might have set me on fire.

Only know that a lifetime later I’m grateful he had no borrowed car.

Ann Curran Pittsburgh, PA

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Pegasus Rising Since the factory’s been shut, small insects can be heard and night’s flimsiest breeze through the toothache tree moves enough leaves to notice.

Could such quiet exist right after creation, before greed, lust, or war?

I lie beside Norma, her slow breath following her final orgasm so soft the darkness fails to stir, and I touch her chest lightly to make sure . . . and feel foolish to doubt.

Full summer. The shadows retain the heat of Norma’s love cries, her fingers clutching my hair. But now all sleep’s blessings are hers.

High overhead, I watch the sickle moon transcend summer’s branches. Later, Pegasus rampant will gallop up from the east.

James Deahl Sarnia, Ontario, Canada

What I Meant to Say

Thank you for the moist oysters and the berries in clotted cream.

Do not turn from me so quickly.

Sink your teeth into this: it is always the forbidden fruit that sparkles on the vine. I saw you with him in the carriage on the circle. You are not the first.

He has savored plump apricots, tart apples, persimmons and prickly pears.

Their juices still linger on his lips.

He will never be sated.

This time it’s different?

My dear, he’s a boy who always trots home to replenish his own orchard.

Liz Dolan Rehoboth Beach, DE In Response to the painting by Ethel B. Leach’s I Meant to Say in the Rehoboth Art League’s Permanent Collection, DE

Working Class Blue Keep your suit and tie.

Give me flannels, Dickies, and Levis with tattoos underneath.

Give me Converse and work boots, baseball hats without the sticker still attached.

Give me the man I grew up around.

Give me the man who knows where I’ve been, who can catch me when it gets too real.

Give me the man who knows what I feel.

Give me flannels, Dickies, Levis, Converse, work boots and tattoos and I’ll show you the best of men that come in working class blue.

Trista Dominqu Downey, CA

Retronaut

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27

Rita I’m your pet You’re my mistress I need you You love me I’m your master You’re my animal I’ve caged you You’ve wounded me Robert Eisenhart Long Beach, CA

LA PETITE MORT A little death, that moment of falling, like holding your breath till stars appear in free-fall you spend it all the spilling what you most desire, on fire for a few seconds.

While you pray to the Lazarus inside for yet another day, another ride, your seed pouring down my thigh another little death or a million.

Alexis Rhone Fancher Los Angeles, CA Originally published by Deep Water Literary Journal, Spring, 2014

Retronaut

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Number Three / 2014

Tamsin, we’ve never met, but thank you for taking such good care of your dad and writing such a wonderful entry into his journal. I’ve been reading his book, Caws and Causeries, that I bought years ago, when it came out, then stashed in the bookshelf, unfinished. To my utter shame. It always made me feel sharp and smart and alive, to read your father’s poetry. Why, I ask, am I so obsessed with minor chords, when Anselm’s poems and prose are bright, visionary majors? It must be why I gravitated toward his poetry-- it levitated me.

Both of my parents died suddenly, while no one was looking. You can look into his eyes and hear him say “hi hi hi hi” and you should treasure that. Treasure that so we can all.

Anselm’s great aunt’s song from the other side: for Anselm, waiting for a train I am so intrigued by his great-aunt’s song “from the other side” I wonder, can he make out the words?

It might be his greatest translation

had I been there (and I wasn’t) had I known it was so urgent (when it didn’t seem so) I would have been I am holding up one finger in the wind to touch you

*

*

it was so urgent and now the time has passed Dennis Formento Slidell, LA

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29

California June Gloom: In Dakota They Wait for Weather The gray thickness drowns me like a dreadful recollection of blunders

and malapropisms.

It keeps me under morning covers too long without the advantage of a Sunday aubade.

A midmorning drive, it could be dawn, wiper blades smear mist across the windshield.

I remember a frightening drive through the lightning storms of South Dakota, mystic sizzles and flashes on the dashboard of my SUV, electric white spirituality as hail pellets drum my roof.

In that region weather makes a statement, unlike the weighty layer of atmosphere that clouds my home.

In Los Angeles, I hope for a quick wind to purge the summer’s soggy air.

Hills will smell musty of weed and dirt short-pant hikers will wipe with the back of their hand slap at mosquitoes and fatigue from the stretch.

Heated winds propel me along burning streets and braze my skin like reddened charcoal.

Through the sting of Southern California vapor I long to be in the thundershower of a South Dakota squall line, a fresh breath of supernatural power and perhaps, resurrection.

Jerry Garcia Studio City, CA

30 •

Number Three / 2014

What Bird Should I Talk To

You are leaving as the sea summons to listen to wave talk feel the siren winds calling your restless spirit away.

You will pace that island while I send you poetry so that you may stay to knit the threads of life for me on this raveling plane.

In this season between migrations vanishing time of nesting, I listen to the birds discussing rain, the progress of fledglings time for new horizons.

Only the raven watches, his conversation apocryphal guarding the time of passage, carrying messages between worlds.

For you..the scree of gulls for me the monotone of raven farewell.

Katherine L. Gordon Rockwood, Ontario, CAN.

FIVE KNIVES FOR TONY to stab himself with 1.

He sleeps in her scent, 2. tastes her when it pleases him, or 3. worse, when it pleases her.

4.

AFTER me, she went with him.

5.

And is with child now. As if – as if Our Lord Himself approves!

Ryan Guth Jackson, TN

Retronaut

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NEEDING BREAD

Desire… where soul meets heart, with lurch and stretch, a grasp, serrated heat, aching pulse of craving.

Katherine Hamilton Camarillo, CA

My hunger is nothing compared to my intent.

Yeast makes things rise: even the dead leave their graves.

Tins of dough wait by the stove like stubborn mules.

But they won’t bray once they’re in the oven.

There’s no way to explain the mastery of bread-making.

It requires one straighten the spine, push down what’s risen.

Dianna Mackinnon Henning Janesville, CA

ff season, the barmaid concocts an exotic cocktail for her boyfriend:

Rain rolls down the lounge’s panoramic window view of the tall lifeguard, toned in his Speedo fig leaf, hauling a bright blue beach umbrella like the folded backdrop of a lover’s horizon.

He stores it in a gaping tangerine cabana.

A puddle sags the seat of the last green chaise by the empty Olympic pool, summer’s swimmers gone. . .

His hairless chest parts the bamboo vines.

Striding barefoot, he mounts the swivel-stool’s tiger skin: his gaze, a wide cloudless blue sky brightening over the yellow cocktail umbrella.

By the red stem, he lifts the maraschino to hang: an unseen bough’s sweet cerise.

Summer opens the petals of her lips.

Allan Kaplan NY, NY

Diet Mind and body pound each other senseless.

Neurons fight their DNA. Fat cells keep on spreading.

A piece of cake lies winking on the plate.

Alarms go off inside your head.

Your body says, there’s nothing worth defending.

You take another drink and go to bed.

Gary Kay Pembroke Pines, FL

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Number Three / 2014

the common dreamscape of desire there is a town I dream into that might be Caldwell, Idaho that might be Santa Monica or Thibodaux may be you know...

Maybe you’ve been to the place I mean... maybe you’ve walked there in your sleep across deserted parking lots...

The plateglass on the storefronts shocks reflecting someone else.

Familiar unfamiliar love waits in some doorway up dark stairs kisses... delicious as chocolate eclairs... the shadows tremble, draw you in... do not question where you’ve been...

And like a small town anywhere, they know you there... they know you there.

Lalo Kikiriki Joshua Tree, CA From Dreams of the Everyday Housewife

What Other Light

The moon is no match for the city’s darkness which splayed out before us from your high-rise window,

like a bear felled in woods.

In the shadows I see your smooth body white with the little light, falling from space.

My eyes, china-blue saucers, drink you in, tousled and cream-colored.

I taste the grapefruit in your mouth soft and juice-filled.

You are all things sweet and bitter.

Your messy bedside table, long-fingered cigarettes, and rumpled grey sheets are like some renaissance tableau.

Your cherub hair belies your devil instincts and you hold me tight as if I was to be the last woman to ever walk through those doors.

The moon is no match for what other light can pulse through bodies unseen but still unparalleled in brightness.

Marie Kilroy NYC, NY

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Retronaut

Sky-Vu Drive In First you’re 16 making out in the back row.

Then you’re married sitting up close so you can watch your kids swing and slide, sprawl and cry.

Before you know it, you’re in an Electra two rows behind the snack bar with the dog asleep on a blanket in the back.

Stars dangle just out of reach – those famous eyes, the silvery rivers of their famous breath, their famous lips.

Ron Koertge S. Pasadena, CA

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Number Three / 2014

Wishing early way too early for the sun to find its way up and over the wasatch mountains i take a break from the graveyard shift outside seeking fellowship among the stars thru the city lites-

what’s needed is a darker locale for a better view of the galaxy now however i search out the darkest star out there laying all my hopes and rambling thoughts on that one forever.

Brent Leake Midvale, UT

into a land of strangers

*

*

the muddy root of the lotus, also

into a land of strangers she comes

desires the sky

a stranger herself

*

*

tropical lotus blooms in the night

in the seed pearl of her beloved moon

white flesh a white moon dreams

the sand grain of her soul

*

black water, blue sky two minds

celestial stranger your secret revealed

consider one light

to a secret concealed

*

*

*

undulating cutwater darkens beneath

an unpainted lotus imagines the mind

the white of a single cloud

wet brush dampens dry water

*

*

the lotus open in the moon-wane of morning

here in the seam of true silk the chrysalis clings

how young a fading white

to the force of an unborn wing

*

how might the lotus thirst in the ever-evaporate black

John B. Lee Port Dover, Ont. Canada

of a deep pool

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35

THE MARGARITAS

Not Enough Memories glow from when once was not enough, twice lasted awhile, was better the second time, especially if back to back, flashing more stars to darkness, causing shorter, shallower breaths, begging for another embrace, and beyond into wild-flowered mountains, alive with butterflies and gypsy violins.

Bernice Lever Bowen Island, BC Canada Previously published in Red Letter Day (Black Moss Press, fall 2014)

The Margaritas were blue with paper roses.

Later I thought how they were the only salt of those nights. His e mail letters like skin, very taut. What he didn’t say drugged me.

Language was wild, intense. I could feel him, his screen name a tongue. Verbs taut, what he didn’t say a drug. It was a dangerous tango.

I wanted his body glued to mine. Distance kept the electricity vivid. It was a dangerous tango.

How could I know his mother leaped into Niagara Falls. I fell for his words, what he left out.

How could I know he was ice. How could I know his mother leaped into the falls.

Even in the heat, he was icy. His name was Snow. Our last night we drove thru fog until 3.

He told me things he said he’d never told anyone.

My thigh burned where it touched him.

On our last night we drove thru Austin mist talking. I was burning. He photographed me, exhausted, at 3 AM. Everything he told me was a scar. My hair curled in a way I hated. After that night I wasn’t sure I would be pretty again.

Everything he told me was a scar. Under the ice the anger in him was lava. I wanted him, always longing for men with something missing.

The Margaritas were the only salt I’d taste.

The anger in him was lava under the ice.

I wanted more, my longing a scar. When he didn’t write, I printed his old e mail.

When I no longer looked for it his e mail was there, like a mugger. The Margaritas were strong with black paper roses Lyn Lifshin Vienna, VA

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Number Three / 2014

Love in the Peace Movement

Skydiver Your educated tongue liquidates sanity set free by your unflagging masculine libido I’m lost in a Utopian universe where stars and planets collide in silent showers of glorious color.

Norma West Linder Sarnia, Ontario, Canada

His molten amber eyes melted afternoons turned the dingy corridor to sea

But the country was at war We were national organizers in the peace movement where time was a marathon of crises sounding through telephones media the mails Time was a race for time to make contacts build networks of people resources expertise for monthly moratoriums on business as usual in protest of the Vietnam war–– get media coverage Congressional support the proper tone and the right number of toilets to prevent violence We touched between meetings briefings travels phone calls office quarrels press conferences interviews talk shows seizing each other in crumbs of burning melting time lying stunned in the quiet that love brings

We had a whole day once at a miners’ conference stranded by a lake in a storm The peace in his face!

He said it was too easy I loved him best in skinny beds in four states in rooms we never returned to We left the movement blown apart and met once two leaves in the wind mating helplessly I conceived his child He went to the Mardi Gras and slept around sold hashish to pay for his half Jane Lipman Tesuque, NM Published in Open Places, No. 20, Fall/Winter 1975-76

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37

She Reads Virginia Woolf As she slept he’d finger-walk all the way up her underarm Soft, like snow falling over the shoulder, ear, lips Sleep melted into a pool that he found with postage-stamp licks Delivered the slow-boat way until she couldn’t breathe right That was before he made appointments with her after x-rated movies Laid back on an island of entitlement and measured her worth by the inches he grew He bought handcuffs, tongue vibrator, Ben Wah balls Told her to exercise with those metal marbles until they played croquet down there It’s understood she’ll use the $100 bill he leaves on the bedside stand for groceries She’ll serve rice and beans twice this week though So she can buy Revlon’s Raisin Rage nail polish Turn the numbness into a red-purple blur bruising the keyboard late at night Hard, like hail hitting bedrock Then she waits for the recoil It comes from fingers on the other end of the airwaves The concussions of her life absorbed by the longing in distance and the science of chemistry The latent heat that liquefies his words so they wash over her in a warm river rush Reason to keep her from filling her pockets with rocks Ellaraine Lockie Sunnyvale, CA Previously published in Main Street Rag

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Number Three / 2014

Loved I loved you Before life began And after it ended I loved you Like a thunderstorm Did water And an ocean The shore I loved you During death And existence My love was as tall as a pyramid And as thick as a cobra’s neck It had no father and mother But thousands of sons and daughters My love was as true as vanilla pudding And as rare as a two dollar bill It was as beautiful as a spearmint swan And as unique as a Picasso peacock It did not bend For it had not learned how Nor did it brake For it had an iron foot It was as large as the sea And as wide as Christopher Columbus’ imagination My love chilled the frozen gargoyles And chipped away at the glaciers around your soul Radomir Vojtech Luza Los Angeles, CA

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New

Dip of your collarbone, slant of your thigh, the dusting of moles on your upper arm.

I chart you slow.

Expanse of your back, stepping stones of spine, how your edges blend under flesh. Your wristbones slide under my fingers, a different combination; your hands in mine, a different lock.

The sheen on your skin almost reflects me. My fingertips graze your beard, and I try to imprint the stubble below your lip.

Your smell is like a new mineral, your taste bright like pink salt.

You are my just-opened trunk, tree-top perch, high desert, cupboard of spices, spring-planted garden.

My favored foreign land.

Amy MacLennan Ashland, OR First published in Weathering, Uttered Chaos Press, 2012 Reprinted in Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems, Tupelo Press, 2012

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Number Three / 2014

Retronaut

Photograph If they airbrushed you out of every photograph of the two of us I’d still know it was us.

Because of the beaming flashlight of my teeth, my smile atop my lips like a throne.

There is a sense of serenity choreographed into place with crazy glue.

There are boats that tend to pass in the night meeting.

There’s this wondrous angle like the sky just came down and handed me a rose.

There’s this house of cards I decorated with all these fab movie posters within.

Pinning hope on you like you are a donkey and I’m blindfolded.

But you are no ass and I wear glasses.

Still nothing is quite as easy as it seems.

Automobiles come with manuals.

People come unadorned and they are the most delicate of puzzles.

A piece of your childhood collides with a crust of your now.

I sift through the orchard that is human nature.

Looking for divine nourishment, counting calligraphy in the bones of your hand.

Ellyn Maybe Laguna Woods, CA

POEM INSPIRED BY ICONIC MOVIE I want you like Eli Wallach wanted Marilyn Monroe riding in the cab of his pickup truck in the movie THE MISFITS Let me see what’s really underneath Allow my id to make friends with your superego and whisper sweet reassurance everything will be just fine

Give me just two weeks of your valuable time in my mountain cabin and I’ll make sure the horses will run free for the rest of their lives without being pursued by the man I used to be before I met you Terry McCarty Canoga Park, CA

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41

Pluto Waiting All summer he has been alone, dreaming of Persephone.

Her name beats in his ears, in her rhythm he remembers.

He cleans the floors, empties the slops, dusts all the sills.

Sprinkles lavender, gets out her stuffed panda, puts a mint under her pillow,

shapes and sharpens fingers and toes, tucks in his shirt, puts a spot of rouge on each cheek, pours pomegranate wine: arranges himself in the lotus position, suspended in his desire Mary McGinnis Santa Fe, NM

Nu-Pike I was nine when we arrived in Los Angeles from small town Indiana—Bloomington, where my father had just completed his doctorate. We moved into a sprawling stucco apartment building in Gardena so he could begin a teaching job at USC. He was a compulsive doer. Every weekend was blocked-out with activities. On the first available Saturday, he informed my mother, brother, and me that we were going to visit an amusement park in Long Beach called Nu-Pike “Why can’t we go to Disneyland?” I asked.

“That’s for wimps. This is the real thing. Like Coney Island in New York;” he said with a grin!

So we all piled into the Mercury, and headed for Long Beach. Nu-Pike was adjacent to the beach, partially built on piers. A gigantic dilapidated wooden roller coaster encircled the property.

Above the entrance, an animatronic man with a pudgy cartoon face rocked back-and-forth laughing ghoulishly thru tinny speakers. There were buzzers and bells, shooting galleries, fortune tellers, bumper cars, and a double ferris wheel slathered in neon. Wet wood, salt wind, and creosote.

But most of all, I remember a new kind of human--tattooed drunken sailors carrying bottles of whiskey with their arms around women wearing short skirts, black fishnet stockings, plunging necklines, overflowing breasts, blazing red lips with cigarettes dangling. And there was lust--in the eyes of the women, and the men. I had never seen it before, but I understood it immediately.

These people lived with abandon, without a thought for tomorrow. I found it both repulsive, and somehow irresistible. Faint screams wafted in-and-out of the wind from the ancient roller coaster, amid the constant clanging and cackling.

Michael Meloan Los Angeles, CA

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Number Three / 2014

Poem Found (Or Industrialized Love)

Pomegranate “Thy temples are like a pomegranate split open behind thy veil.”

—Song of Songs here at the pulse my finger against milky skin against glare of sun veiled by milky clouds split I am day I am night open red in pale flesh in globes in seed in seeds sweet and pith and cool on tongue and full of red bite and bitten waiting for drink for tongue and teeth for fork and knife to split the veil the fruit the seed Elaine Mintzer Manhattan Beach, CA

I choose you … amid 35% profit organizations I choose the sight of you in a house rebuilt by trembling hands your face in every window

a high bitter wind seals my eyes I choose you … between corporate structures I choose the sound of you in a cemetery of sputtering motors … wheels … sewing machines … frenzied steel … a million blacksmiths hammering … hammering I choose the sound of you … the breath of a flower humming nearby … the eyeless wind no longer taking me

a misshaped pounding shatters my ears I choose you … in a field of poisoned corn-husks the crippled land grandfather plowed I choose the touch of you … blindness converting me to unmortal man I choose the touch of you

power saws lop off my hands I choose you … blind … deaf … stumped … unable to touch your silence I choose the sense of you a junkyard body freezes to rust You choose me … lips spark in an arc-weld rainbow you choose me … your kiss cutting me adrift … my head floats out to space like a fugue balloon Michael Mirolla Oakville, Ont. Canada

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ASSEMBLING THE BROTHER My brother is a conveyor, revolving back to the thing that most deserts him, the woman. He is miniature fighter jets & star ships. A tiny republic. You should think of him as an everglade.

Swampy edges & constant reinforcement. You should think of his bones split open learning to re-harden & see the pattern of a picket fence—it surprised all of us when he got a house, learned to garden, & made pickles. The best pickles. My brother is a surprise. There is a metal plate & nine screws in his leg from a dirt bike accident. His wrist cannot twist, his shoulder once fledged out like a wing. My brother is subtraction & a ledge. He is a carpenter, has the most miraculous hobbies. He built a dining room table & a telescope. He installs the ducts of essential air lines for NASA. He does not list his talents among these things. He is single again. His love is impossible, his dust lines everything. When I ask why he is has spent his life on an awful woman, he says only that he is an awful man. You should think of him in brilliant pieces with six different color sides.

He is a puzzle. My brother is the lever they pull to make all the hardships end. & begin again.

Danielle Mitchell Long Beach, CA Previously published in Connotation Press April 2014 NEAR MISS For JJ

Who, seeing, would not see her?

She is tall and brave.

Who, turning a wheel, seeing, could not see her?

She is bright as rain in moonlight.

She is the first spark that ignites darkness.

Wheel in hands, wheels on blacktop, rubber on pavement, trapped in geometry, who is this who, seeing, does not see her?

She is the smooth-hewn statue catching silver beams falling from the waxing moon.

Her cool eyes always—never—fail to see you.

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Number Three / 2014

Who looking—straight or elsewhere— who, looking, would not see her?

No one.

She is grace beyond the moment.

She is quick and light even when she does not know it.

She is beauty itself constantly in motion, precisely still and eternally elusive.

She always escapes.

Mark Mitchell San Francisco, CA

Evolution

become

you are afraid to touch the darkness in me

eroticizing what is already night and deep in you

i feel you playing with the dark at its edge and how much you want to know the way it moves in me

this substance common to us endures longs to ignite

to become light again Lois Nantais Brigden, Ontario, Canada

The night-blooming cereus, Queen of the Desert, perfumes the yard, giving her one-night-only performance.

Everyone knows this show for what it is: an effort to employ olfactory wiles in service of the seed, attracting avid Sphynx moths and bats, metallic scarabs like bouncers in their glittering regalia.

A scent strong as a snare, tangible as the bug-eyed peepers’ insistent shrilling in the sodden leaves.

For a week, the bud hung heavy, until just yesterday it began to turn up toward the light, green bodice beginning to swell, as the double flower prepared to meet its suitors.

Fully open now, it holds itself out to be tasted, petals a cupped palm nestled in a jagged ruff of lower leaves, crowned by a yellow starburst.

As I watch, a moth’s proboscis unfurls like a fiddlehead.

Before morning, the flower will wither, having done its duty for the plant and the moon too deflate like a day-old helium balloon, until it seems that I can snuff it with a thumb.

I too play a role, as surely smitten as the moth or beetle, the peepers, singing despite themselves, compelled to stitch a song out of the perfumed air.

Robbi Nester Lake Forest, CA Previously published by Prompt and Circumstance on their website

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45

lounge lizard

Wolf Moon So close you think collision is imminent, so large you could touch it, bring its hard edge to your mouth, feel the cold golden glow, like stale ice stuck to your lip.

This same sense of danger brings you night after night to your knees, pliant, postulant, intemperate in your longing. planted on this rock, this earth we call home, baying at moonrise loudly and alone.

You would think someone would invite you inside, if only to give you a tattered bone.

Barbra Nightingale Hollywood, FL

Retronaut

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Number Three / 2014

throat raw from yelling from shared cigarette smoke free drinks from smiling servers eyes burning red and puffy feet sore from walking lips chapped face itchy ears ringing dry mouth 2PM just getting up buffet breakfast missed again tonight I’ll go with the crowds to all the free outdoor shows water ballet at Bellagio fire volcano at the Mirage try to find someone to share a couple 2 for 1 coupons Carl Palmer University Place, WA

I Could Never Keep Up With Him

It was a benison on the red and blue rivers flowing through this aging bone house: ‘Bless your veins and arteries!’ the Greek used to exclaim out loud to dull-witted boys, like me, bastard sons of bar-maids in a barrel house. I once asked him the definition of eleemosynary*, it was the only time I ever caught him in ‘I don’t know!’

His father visited my pregnant wife One night, back in the height of his fame, He was kind and gentle, and had absolutely no business being a father.

His mother and I had a mutual admiration Society For A Day, one night. Sharing As we did the life-long desire to achieve The adoration of thousands.

Now I see the arc of the Greeks career Has plumed into a longish comet tail Across a literary sky large enough To accommodate the both of us.

Now I see, at last, what flows Through his red and blue rivers What grows in those upside down Trees inside his chest,

Was never really a mean season at all It was always a breaking dawn. *the art of charity

* Before the morning kiss this cup must be heated, aroused and full length in the ravine

its jittery tongue waits for the sun to move closer, fill your mouth as if every breath has a tragic ending

is covered in water made invisible by tiny desert stalks and something to hope for

--it takes hours, panting till the light darts across smelling from coffee

that asks what time is it and the kiss that goes by no longer evening or old.

Simon Perchik East Hampton, NY

Michael Paul Garden Valley, CA

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Autoerotica I was thinking about you while fondling myself.

At least, I called it you, though you might not recognize yourself.

You’re not alone.

Roadrunner cartoons are more nuanced than the subject matter or the characters in my masturbating life.

When I was 14, I played tennis with some girl whose sweatshirt slipped when she served.

I could see one bra strap.

At 16, a redhead in the halls turned and smiled over her shoulder, and at the ROTC dance in Corpus Christi this debutante touched my neck and asked, “does that bother you?”

I was so lame I said no.

We never even kissed.

I’ve been excited over the loop the sailors made of the credits to Barbarella, Brenda Lee singing “Sweet Nothings,” Playmate foldouts masking-taped to walls, and black-and-white, 2d, 8-inch tall Mouseketeers.

Everything but that Acme anvil.

It’s embarrassing, really, how the vaguest shred of misremembered skirt, smirk, smell, whatever kickstarts my unreproductive machine.

All I can say is thanks for the great kindness of meeting me in bed so I can try once again to bring as much of me as I can be to as much of you as I can see.

Bob Perkins Manhattan Beach, CA

48 •

Number Three / 2014

The Bridge I Wake up!

You are burning moonlight.

The sun and its day are on their way.

Sometimes I Feel More the Whore than the Whores I’m Writing About Whitman wrote about America Williams wrote about Red wheelbarrows Ginsberg wrote about Cock Bukowski wrote about Horses I’m watching a coke whore Trying to find a good vein In her foot and I’ll I can think about Is wanting to fuck her Edward Jamieson, Jr. Irvine, CA

Wake up and remember who you are, who I am, and who we can be when we are together.

Open your eyes, prick up your ears, and spread your arms wide.

Bear your barrel chest.

It was built for more than beating, target practice and whiskey.

Expose your exquisite throat.

Let me hear you howl at your new found heaven.

God, how I miss your song.

Wake up!

I am dying to feast on the whites of your eyes and feel the mercy of your hot breath inside my lungs.

Raundi K. Moore-Kondo Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

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Paris Elegies #4 Villon You were born in the year Joan of Arc was burned at the stake national poetry month in the lowlife april city of paris disgraced medieval verse-slinging thief, what personal poverty antiChrist made you kill a priest in a bar brawl? Then he forgives you on his deathbed.

Between the warmth of a whisky’s first kiss & dawn’s last call Corso & Bukowski, your American stepsons somewhere on the terminal streets of heaven hurl lightning bolt poems!

I know they’d read your ballades your gospels the lecherous verse between the two I can’t judge who was fairest but, according to you there is no tongue like one from paris.

John Macker Santa Fe, NM

Retronaut

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Number Three / 2014

Interviews Gr ace Cavalieri Interview “…poets rinse off language.”

Editor’s note: I was first introduced to Ms. Cavalieri

by Ed Nudelman in Lummox 1. We struck up a conversation and became, what I think we could call it, fast friends. This, in spite of the differences in our educational backgrounds. I hope that the reader will find this interview of interest. --RD

RD: What first drew you to poetry as a form of expression?

GC: After interviewing 100s of poets I have evidence to believe that writers are wired at birth—seeing language as a paradigm—the way to understand the world. Of those writers, the ones who seek poetry as a voice probably have specific kinds of energies. I think poets are people with abilities that are intense, like sprinters. Novelists are the marathon types. I feel when I write I’m a roman candle…that must be my energy force field…it starts with strong feelings and then an explosion of words.

RD: At what age did this happen?

GC: I started writing poetry at 8 or 11 (most others report the same—writing at an early age;) There has to be a childhood accessibility to books, and a wish to enter other realms, to enter others’ imaginations. Remember, I

was born at a time without TV or electronic fantasies, so everything written was an escape to someone else’s paradise.

RD: You mention interviewing hundreds of poets. Please explain what it is that you do?

GC: In 1975 I was teaching poetry at Antioch’s east coast college when I heard of a new radio station going on-air in Washington DC, looking for a Drama And Literature Director. Only a Pacifica station would have such a value; and I was on fire. I could reach 20 in a class, 200 in a lecture hall but imagine poetry reaching 200,000! Why should the airwaves belong to the people who sold cornflakes and hygiene sprays? Why couldn’t we appropriate some of that air?

I spent 2 years helping to raise money to get WPFW-FM on air and we premiered in 1977 with Sterling Brown’s poetry and Duke Ellington’s “A–Train.” I produced 8 arts shows

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Doug Holder Interview

RD: What first drew you to poetry as a form of expression? Were you inspired by a certain poet or was it a teacher who encouraged you? At what age did this happen?

DH: I grew up in a bookish family. My great uncle Dave Kirschenbaum was noted bookseller in New York City and was the founder of the Carnegie Book Shop on Book Row. So we would always be getting books, including poetryso I was never a stranger to this. I dabbled in poetry as a teenager but it wasn’t until my 20s ( I didn’t publish my first poem until I was 36) that it started to take weight. I had read the Inman Journals. This was authored by Arthur Crew Inman (May 11, 1895 – December 5, 1963) who was a reclusive and unsuccessful American poet whose 17-million word diary, extended from 1919 to 1963. It is one of the longest English language diaries on record.

Inman, a rich, eccentric, holed up in a hotel room near the Prudential Tower in Boston, He placed ads in the old Boston Post asking for people to interview. His subjects were

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not celebrities, mind you, but everyday folks, cab drivers, porters, chambermaids, barmen, waiters, prostitutes,—you name it. This concept fascinated me and I started to play even more attention to the journals I was keeping. I had started writing in a rooming house that I lived in on Newbury Street (Boston) in 1978. I still keep a diary to this day—but I have much fewer entries. I learned from Inman the importance of keeping a journal and the attention to detail.

RD: Most poets these days come from a college background, was this helpful in finding your “voice”? Or did that happen later?

DH: I found my voice through my everyday life. I have lived in the Boston area since 1973 when I was a freshman at Boston University. I have worked on psychiatric wards at McLean Hospital since 1982; I have lived in rooming houses on Newbury Street in Boston in the 70s; I frequented many of the greasy spoons, bars, old movie houses of the city, many of which are long gone. My voice is one that has developed

Poetry Contest Winners First Annual LUMMOX Press Poetry Prize first place:

JOHN SWEET

lin in love with you on charlotte street, in the shadows of ruined empires, and still young enough to think that this matters kissing you naked in the blind heat of august afternoons and then tasting your sweat drinking it like the one true religion air around us thick with sunlight & dust and the scent of spanish flowers

hoarfrost soliloquy strung out like god in the bluegrey light of early evening her fingertips numb my tongue across her nipples and it’s here that all names become holy speak them softly towards the ceiling let the windows dissolve up and out and into the sky like starlings

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probably house crashes up hard against the rocks, rhythm of the blow job is ruined, children awake and crying and feels good laughing at someone else’s pain feels good laughing age of gold but try telling that to the starving try making promises you actually intend to keep

and when the phone rings at 3 a.m. there is only silence on the other end god maybe or your lover’s ex-husband no one who wishes you well either way no one who cares how long it’ll take for you to bleed to death nothing to do this late in the game but get on with it

for lisa, before she disappeared you with yr sister in her crucifixion pose all fucked up & beautiful in the middle of winter naked at the back door on her hands and knees and i said this is not my fault and there were those among us who had begun to believe it there were those who felt the future ought to hold at least some small amount of promise

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incandescence had hope like all good dogs and everything tasted like lust or the salt from yr skin and all i knew for those 2 sunfucked years was that we would never grow old all i knew was that we would never die all i dreamt was the goddess warmth of yr kiss

madrigal snow falling on empty fields in the coldest part of january and it seems like i’ve wasted most of my life believing in you feels like the idea of religion must’ve felt to christ when the first nail was driven home you keep running towards the future until the day you realize you’re running from the past you keep breathing even after the water rises over your head

second place:

good boy good girl no need for apology here in the century of dreaming monsters just walk up quietly and put the knife in just admit that your lovers were all addicts and whores turn away happy with their blood on your hands

WILLIAM TAYLOR, Jr.

It’s Easier to Write Poetry It’s easier to write poetry than it is to be alive, and inside me beats a half-assed heart and the soul of something slightly less than human, which is why on this day (on which they tell me anything is possible if you have but the courage to stand up and ask) I sit here embracing weakness instead of you.

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The Word I have seen the faces of the broken all my life their eyes all faraway and pleading their faces like the victims of unspeakable accidents and I have always wondered how they lived wondered what kept them going through the days like ghosts no one wanted to remember and now that I am of them I have come to understand that like me they are waiting for a word from someone who no longer loves them a word with the power to save them a word that deep down they know will never come and perhaps like me they imagine they might one day accept this and somehow find a way to save themselves and become whole again but that day, should it come is not this day and for now me and the rest of the broken we just pass the hours with our confusion and loss waiting and waiting for a word.

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I Will Think of You Again Tonight and no amount of wine no number of sad songs or hours in which to sing them will be enough.

Through the Fires of Everything Darling, if you would only come to me again I would not repeat the sin of letting you go.

I would shed weakness, and be as strong and as beautiful as you once imagined.

I would sing with you through the fires of everything, cling to you as we laughed fearlessly through the void, our love so much bigger and truer than death.

Tonight everything is broken and nothing heals.

Darling, if you would only come.

third place:

CHRISTINA FOSKEY

South Central Your heart is a burning watts riot.

Your freeways embrace the restless and less rested.

Where tamarind eyes find men devoted to bosoms of orange blossoms ripe with the price of freedom and the gift of gritty, clogged cap, covered railroads.

You, in fine lines, whorls of coffee bean stained calluses, offer hope.

Offerings of God, on every block of Slauson Avenue, stand next to liquor stores.

South Central you are ugly.

Old, depleted low income clinics try to save your dying young.

Los Angeles ranked , gave you ninety-nine cent and cigarette stores.

California drank all your water and you are thirsty.

You are drunk on Montana can, clouded, gutter water.

The broken women envy your strength, hold their heads high, after salacious transactions in your streets.

The Virgin Mary fights to stick to the worn, dented side of a passing elote cart.

You gladly cut your veins and beg “Drink of me...”, South Central you are a Martyr.

These schools they will build of you, look more like prisons.

Pomp-adoring-graffiti-legends.

I left for you my love, on the corner of 58th. street, Te echo De menos.

His lips wrote Spanish poems on the backs of my hands.

I left for you my heaven, at the gate of a barbed wired home pit bulls shredding it apart, just like you asked.

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When he said he’d met someone I felt like a cat, dragging along warm summer pavement still, slightly attached by persistent ligaments

tearing, membranous rush hemorrhage engulfing sea of me blooming decay into the gravel road disfigured further, bursting engine thrust

to a cars undercarriage heavy with exhaust dirtied by oil the limp body gives

needy liver, yoga display mat- twisted, warmth-warship mistaken for garbage glistening litter

tendons, organs, fascia, life-form baggage, flush of mouth grey-blue beating bouquets opening tongue-untied, out

tumbling in the days sun fatty tissue, yellow crust day old, twice run over pizza by morning

Etiquette A little girl sets servings for four on a red runner She’s at the table rearranging place settings Her brother bounces reflections off of her silverware with his he keeps secrets She sends signals Daddy always gets served first Mommy sets the liver in the center dressed in lacey onions mineral grit calf’s blood pursed lips she is proud closed mouthed

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Ruthie pokes at dead meat with indifference She’s a big girl Daddy knows He watches her play with her food his eyes hurt drinks bottom lip purple purging hands to thighs under heirloom blankets table clothed sacrifice eat s l o w pretend to like it only swallow half he delivers sharp utensils heavy hands on shoulders steak knife set between her fork and spoon

John Macker Interview This interview with John Macker was conducted

by John Wizniewski for Lummox in 2013.

JW: John you are inspired by where you live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. What inspires you to write poems about New Mexico?

JM: I write poems about the desert southwest, its ground, its characters, its history. Its last breath vistas, its forbidden terrain, its border controversies.

It’s where the Apache made their last stand, it’s where immigrantia from Mexico & borders beyond come to start new lives. For years, it’s been under assault from developers, speculators, politicians, gold seekers, all manner of miscreant who has seen the southwest as a last gasp place of refuge. The words are baked by the sun in the ground & in the wide skies. New Mexico is fun because it has colorful indigenous characters whose names still resound. Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Victorio, Nana, Juh, Mangas Coloradas, many of the Apache chiefs rode this territory all their lives; Oppenheimer & his first atomic bomb.

One of the first great trails into the vastness of the territory, the El Camino Real, from deep in Mexico to just north of Santa Fe, was

utilized first as a game trail, then as a road of commerce by the early indigenous peoples, then by the conquistadors & explorers. Parts of it are still visible. I’ve camped, climbed & hiked across this desert southwest for most of my life.

Rattlesnakes, turkey vultures, coyotes, roadrunners, ravens, Indians, arroyos, drug dealers & Mexican jaguars all populate my poems. I’ve been down here about 19 years, I live in a casita in rural northern New Mexico & I wasn’t sure what would inspire me when I first arrived, but it didn’t take long for this litany of found beasts & landscapes to attain mythic status & begin working on my subconscious.

Shortly, they became fellow travelers in my everyday life. I began doing a lot of research

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Daniel McGinn Interview RD: What first drew you to poetry as a form of expression? Were you inspired by a certain poet or was it a teacher who encouraged you?

DM: I would like to think poetry was in the music I heard before I could speak. I was in the womb, listening to Little Richard on the radio. I remember it like it was only yesterday, he was singing: Tutti frutti, au-rutti.

Tutti frutti, au-rutti.

Tutti frutti, au-rutti.

A whop bop-a-lu a whop bam boom!

I don’t care how old you are, a lyric like that bypasses the intellect and speaks directly to the soul. A good metaphor does the same thing. I remember loving Chuck Berry when I was just a kid. I was only two when Maybelline was recorded but it remained on the jukebox for many years. I remember when you could play three songs for a quarter and I would spend my quarter to play Maybelline three times in a row, it went like this: As I was motivatin’ over the hill I saw Maybelline in a Coupe de Ville A Cadillac arollin’ on the open road Nothin’ will outrun my V8 Ford The Cadillac doin’ about ninety-five She’s bumper to bumper, rollin’ side by side.

That poetry stirs my soul. I still marvel at Berry’s guitar work, everybody who understands rock n’ roll knows what a wizard he is. I was born lyric-oriented and Berry had my attention right out of the starting gate when he whipped out the perfect verb: “motivatin.”

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He didn’t invent the word, he re-appropriated it and dropped the “g” at the end. It sounds like motorvatin’ and that’s what he’s really sayin’.

He keeps droppin’ the “g” sound and as the song plays out it works like magic in the world of his song. YouTube it, and listen to how tight the rhyme scheme clings to the rhythm pocket. If you can stop dancing, close your eyes and listen to the words. Can you see Maybelline arollin’ in a Coupe de’ Ville? Berry is a poet and a genius.

I memorized this lyric when I was a boy and Maybelline is still playing in my head.

Teachers? Dylan is huge, so is Robert Hunter, Jeff Tweedy, Stevie Wonder, Ani Difranco, Smokey Robinson, Paul Simon, Lucinda Williams, Conner Oberst, Neil Young…I could go on but I wouldn’t want to bore you.

I never had a Stand and Deliver or Dead Poet Society teacher but I would like to take this opportunity give a shout out to Miss Mali, a third grade teacher with a hypnotic set of legs.

Forgive me for staring but, oh my goodness, I will never forget you. And to Norm Peters who trusted me enough to let me edit articles for the high school paper.

The people who taught me about poetry were

William Smith Photo

Rick Smith Interview Editor’s note: I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Rick for around 20 years. But he first entered my life through a magazine called Stonecloud. It was published out of Stanford, CA and had poetry by a lot of poetry mainstays including Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski, Laurel Ann Bogen, MC Ford to name but a few. Rick was one of the editors. It has been my pleasure to encourage him over the years because I think he’s one helluva poet! And he ain’t too bad on the harmonica either…

RD: What first drew you to poetry as a form of expression? Were you inspired by a certain poet or was it a teacher who encouraged you?

At what age did this happen?

RKS: I think I was crazy with luck growing up in New York City, Paris and then Buck County, Pennsylvania, surrounded by diversity and culture. My dad was a painter. His portrait of Carl Sandburg, painted from life in our home, hangs in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in D.C. Great Aunt, Dorothy OldingMcKeown, was a literary agent at Harold Ober

Associates in New York. She handled Langston Hughes and J.D. Salinger. Lenore Marshall and Pearl Buck were neighbors. Painters and writers were at our dinner table talking about process. It’s like I was just dipped so it was all over me and my sisters. Mom, at 92, is still painting. That kind of ferocious energy and expression jump started all three of us. Then I had Michael Casey at Solebury School in Pennsylvania. In the 11th grade, he’s telling us about Shakespeare and Yeats, of course, but he’s talking about Naked Lunch, Olympia Press, censorship and outlaw publishing. Then

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The Bridge II Desire

Laser lights blacken surfaces, broken skin heals, childhood ends or does it?

Does it live in cells, genetic prisons, sanctuaries of godless unrest? What I wanted was to be

loved; a vocation of choice, by the sister I struck with my hair brush, flinging it down

the stairs, shattering the French door, its glassy stare in its little panes wavering before falling to pieces.

Now, I am old, there is too much light, and I, forever locked in its glare, open closed doors,

see my sister dead on a bus in Kearny, alone, and unloved, needing me to brush her hair.

Lucille Gang Shulklapper Boca Raton, FL

First Date the taste of blood burning the blade lingered on her tongue she looked down on him the glint in her eye pulled up the corners of her mouth as if this were love

his eyes stared up at her unblinking she turned, leaving the blade point down in the asphalt and under him a darkness grew drifting a river down the white line Thomas R. Thomas Long Beach, CA

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Return to the First Garden When my father was seventy-four and I was no longer the girl that cowered, skirting the edge of the room, I asked him to travel back to his childhood, the landscape he’d banished for years.

He became an Amish boy in suspenders, hitching the horse to the buggy, driving the back country roads of Delaware, past red chokeberries that lined the ditches, chickadees darting from hawthorn trees.

He remembered the bitternut hickory and showed me the fence rows he’d walked every Sunday, the sweet gum tree with star-shaped leaves, the wounds he and Rudy carved in its bark.

He followed oaks along sandy lanes back to the farm north of Dover, back to the small mother in her black stockings, bending over the zinnias, hoeing the rows of sweet peas.

Now that his body knew it was dying, he longed to return, curl like a fetus rocking across a broad salty ocean back to an orchard, a white-blossomed garden where he first emerged and turned his desire toward a bright world, no knowledge, no memory, no bitter fruit.

Grace Vermeer Sarnia, Ont. Canada A version of this poem was first printed in Arborealis, (Beret Days Press 2012)

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RoadKill

Starter’s Block You ready for the sprint, forego the marathon. Your only plan, the memorial service.

Prepare for the worst. You conjure music, speakers, guests, memento mori.

It comforts you, as if you won’t be there.

Shun bulk-buying and economy-size cans of lentils, tuna, aspirations. A goldfish, a long-term commitment.

You abide queries of well-meaning friends, love in their mouths, cinching up their tongues.

You learn to be gracious, decline overtures of remedy through hyperbaric tank; lactose-free, wheat-free, organic, macrobiotic diets, and libations devised by Peruvian mystics, comprising the urine of black male goats. *

A decade passes.

Your college heartbreak dies of cancer.

Stroke fells a poet.

Your doctor drowns in the same contaminated plasma coursing through your veins.

Others succumb to hurdles you left behind.

You weren’t supposed to live this long.

You should be dead by now, the starter’s gun long since discharged.

Feeble parents tumble through the phone, lost in a cruel and baffling world, they were to survive you. Now gone too.

Your body sags.

Are you dead yet? the mirror asks.

Are your feet cold?

Ronald Aden Alexander Santa Barbara, CA

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DEAR JOHN I wrote dozens of letters to win your heart.

You wrote only one to break mine.

Matt Amott Beaverton, OR First appeared in “The Coast Is Clear” (Six Ft Swells Press)

Ever After

A friend told me once that if a coyote crosses your path when you’re leaving the desert, it means you’ll be back.

It’s happened so often, I feel the lift of that fiction— almost expecting a trickster to acknowledge my road trip

with a leisurely lope over the blacktop, a devil-may-care look in his eye.

One day, I passed a lump of fur instead, curled, fetal, as though he sought comfort in his own warmth at the end—

No blood, no limbs asunder, just a mask of pain on the muzzle, the nightmare over, no waking up.

Death has a way of separating flesh and blood from fables— the body gone, the road empty, my return no more or less

than coyote’s—unheralded, like my departure.

Cynthia Anderson Yucca Valley, CA

Retronaut

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She Adores Me Over dinner the woman I have been slowly falling in love with for al most 20 years tells me “I adore you.”

Something is missing as if there is a big unspoken BUT hanging in the air above our table and I realize that the phrase I adore you seems foreign somehow and I don’t know how to respond.

It hangs in the air as time slows to a crawl and I roll it around in my head as if it’s an idea that I desperately want to embrace but can’t.

And of course the big BUT floats down to the table top and opens like a big lotus blossom saying in her voice but I don’t love you I hope you understand.

I’ve waited so long to hear those words that now when they finally come I don’t quite understand them / take them in.

And time just rolls to a stop for a couple of seconds while I try to digest this while a heaviness takes over my chest.

And I position a soft sardonic smile on my face and say SURE that’s okay we’re still friends right?

And as the message sinks in I’m trying desperately to not let her see how much this is hurting me how I’m struggling to put on my brave face.

How the words I’ve longed to hear are now breaking my heart.

I have to remember to take this off my bucket list and put it on my fuck it list.

RD Armstrong Long Beach, CA

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April Fool She flagged me down on Crow Neck Road.

Shit. I was late enough already.

But her flailing, her shredded voice, her inky appearance compelled me to stop.

Wearing black seemed to suit her, that shade of black like running out of gas or hitting an animal on a lonely stretch of road.

I shuddered to think of it.

So Poe.

I wish I hadn’t seen her. After all, between searching in vain for Fluffy who catted around outdoors all night and the presentation now due at noon, who had time to be a Good Samaritan?

I spotted the object of her hysteria road kill amidst acorns strewn like marbles: gray fur matted red around a bushy tail, paws stiff with disbelief, eyes about to confide the murderer.

As I drew closer, afraid to view the remains, the flagger licked her chops and flew to her murder, raven-friends cawing and guffawing on high at how superbly they had hoodwinked me.

Oh, yes. Even crows cruelly fool on April 1st.

Kim Baker Warwick, RI

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Here’s Help Against All Odds

this day filled with the release of spring I have been buying pansies and a rose of Sharon potting soil and mulch to beautify my home my heart is lifted up for deliverance from record cold and snow

then sprouts out the season’s first homeless man one of the many the countenance has not been lifted to skinny as a meth addict face craggy ragged as his cloths dirty layers with more miles than years

placed like a sniper on a strategic corner between two shopping malls traffic always slow so everybody has to see him or his unwell-worn sign that could say anything nobody cares no one asks the poor to share their dreams

from a distance in the right turn lane I roll my windows up make sure the doors are locked stare straight ahead I have heard about the rip-off some guy drops these people early as the sun pinks up the clouds then later in clandestine dusk he picks them up again to collect the cash worse than a carney scam

just as I pull next to him and read his hopelessness I feel the freshness of my breath catch in my lungs involuntarily my index finger puts the window down I peel off five dollars and extend my arm he says “God bless you man.” and I roll on trying to understand fingering the careful roughness he has left on my hand Robert Baker Lexington, KY

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The Toads Fritz screamed Asshole!

At Hangover Steve.

Steve mumbled slow Ly Moth-er-fuck-er After he droved over Fritz’s foot With his forklift.

Banyon the boss Came over to see what the fuck Was going on With Fritz being On the warehouse floor And all whimpering and yelling.

I was in the circle Of the guys with Otis.

Banyon did his in Specting shit and got up And said It’s like road kill Stupid Otis, who was a Goldbrick and a Poet said Ain’t no road kill More like Toed kill Michael Basinski Buffalo, NY

Red Goose The goose lay his gentle neck bent back sleek white, steel grey red spreading like wings saturating flight someone had landed him he lay in a new pool small red as I passed it hurt stormy, cloudy downy feathers flew still in flight falling across my windshield soft feathers knowing only air holding no red refusing to land Heather Browne Garden Grove, CA

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Rose, Raven: A Valentine Rose, raven, raven, rose – bright petals lying soft on snow, snow white, rose red, black raven, and the deer not dead an hour, struck by a car, and the wind crying.

Bright drops the shape of scattered petals lying across the heaped berm, where the deer leapt and lost – crimson, scarlet, rose, a clear vermilion. And raven, dark as forged metal glinting in the sun: Black wing, talon thorn, and the deer’s belly full open like a blown rose at the end of autumn: petals thrown profligate to the wind, and its red heart torn.

B. J. Buckley Power, MT From the chapbook “Corvidae”(Lummox Press, 2014) and previously published in the MezzoCammin online journal.

That Perfect Curve The tear halts on her cheek that perfect curve before slipping it salutes her sorrow as it falls she thinks she must forget everything.

But she cannot– She wants to honor the grief but it renders her mute.

Just like the tear– Peggy Carter Manhattan Beach, CA

Road Kill and Ironweed He was so far off the grid even heat seeking missiles can’t find him, drones ineffective in dense unregulated growth areas, eating road kill feats, food gathered on late night forays, burning badgers by moonlight, for even deeper cover, scent masking, smoking skunk weed grown wild as jack lighted beasts on country roads he sits beside with rucksacks and burlap

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bags, sipping Ironweed cider, blitzed all day, awake all night, filthy crazy as an Road Warrior extra, thirsty for gasoline and blood, mock singing exsanguinations to the tune of Anticipation, a couple of horsemen short of an apocalypse.

Alan Catlin Schenectady, NY

For a Coyote Crossing Route 10 That, or a fox. Hairless and thin, hunger making it walk when it should have waited for the truck to pass.

The Dodge slowing to let the creature cross: What could have been a 19th gray, scary, unknown.

Don’t tell me nature means never outgrowing a wild puppyhood.

I want to track the big-eared delirious thing down and feed it a T-bone but the dog drags behind every unseen sorrow: butterflies in car grills, orphaned bear, and beyond them humans bought and sold, without homes, the smallest at times shivering.

Could I ever be like the Buddha who lay his body down for tiger cubs to feast and grow strong on his flesh?

I swear I have done this before, but does that dissolve me from my responsibility?

My coyote—he owns me now— steals into someone’s yard.

I sneak into my own.

Ann Cefola Scarsdale, NY First published in Sugaring (Dancing Girl Press, 2007)

Jealousy When I answer my phone It goes click, It has happened a lot lately.

There is a new dress in the laundry I have not seen you wear,

It is black and short.

You have your hair done But haven’t asked what I think There was a sale on at the Sports shop today, I have bought a new gun.

Benny Coles Waihi Beach, New Zealand

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Much More Than Roadkill

1.

One small animal hurled brainless to the pavement is dubbed “roadkill,” but two instead turn into a poem about brother and sister or father and daughter or husband and wife or mother and son or daughter and mother or son and father with one’s head on the center divide facing the other’s on the shoulder ten feet apart each from the other.

With only one, it’s simply “roadkill.”

How very different though when there are two.

2.

I later watched a crow in all it’s onyx glory amble from the shining silver scarlet carcass of a disemboweled squirrel in the street much the same way that a CPA stuporously returns to the office after lunchtime’s over.

Somehow this was much more terrible to me than witnessing the scene in reverse: a crow to a corpse, a crow gorging, simply ravenous for something full from cherries bursted.

3.

dead deer car killed Ed Coletti Santa Rosa, CA

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About An Apple

How might it have turned out if Adam had been stronger, and resisted the apple, so that Eve was cast out on her own while he stayed in the Garden, sunning his perfect body beside an azure lake on a grassy plain in Eden,

unaware of his Maker’s toil in preparing a new mate who might question less, and be happy to accept the moment for what it was, to be thankful once and for all? A mate who might bear offspring instead of desire.

One who didn’t search for answers beneath rocks, and spend hours lying on her back, sunburned skin soothed in the cool earth while she dreamed of the fragrant apple, of a red that pulsed, could feel the snap of her teeth breaking the skin to draw it in and make it a part of her.

Would Eve wake, alone and contrite, to grasp the error in her design, or does it take others for us to know shame?

Maybe she’d walk in a circle around the garden wall until she found the padlocked gate, where she would peer through the grating and blow kisses to Adam, asking about his day and congratulating him on the obedience of his new mate,

while he stared back, admitting he couldn’t remember ever meeting her, and that he had no idea who carried the key to the rusty lock.

How long might she wait at the gate, before hefting the sin onto her back and trudging her desirous self off to see the world?

Sharyl Collin Torrance, CA

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The End Before she wrestled her duffel bag out the door, she spun around and said: You’re always in your head writing those fucking poems.

And I was about to confess that most of them were about her when I saw the protruding veins in her neck.

Flexing like fuel lines.

Fuel lines for the flame of hair above her scowling face.

The face that turned away from my blank expression.

An expression that must have said that this poem was already being written.

Corey Cook Thetford Center, VT

Retronaut

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FUNDAMENTALS, PART I “This house is clean.”

– Tangina Barrons Dad let me grow a part of my life in a Baptist church on the side of a highway, where all cars speeding seventyfive in a sixtyfive could see three crosses stuck in the ground, middle one bigger than the others, painted a supposed light-blue because that was the color of heaven, said my cousin. Didn’t matter to me – I was colorblind.

They taught the Calvary Fundamentals, but it wasn’t your hole in the wall church though. No, better than that, a hole in the ground church, literally.

Jackson, to this day, is tornado hill in the flats of West Tennessee.

It sheltered a white-painted Jesus in the sky, framed behind the pulpit, and his work-boot-wearing, thrift-store-dressing, khaki-panted-believers were invited to take cover from the storm.

Dirt, forced by screams of the preacher, came from the ceiling, hitting occupants in pews and strengthening Brother Terry’s sermon: earth is not your house.

But I’ll tell you the truth – I only liked to sing when the hymnal leader, my Uncle Bobby (whose factory-severed fingers still managed to hold a bible every “Sundy”), invited me to sing.

The rest bored me, heavily. Even Pastor Terry’s loud cries, and I mean sobs, put me to sleep.

It was simple. I didn’t believe it or understand it.

I didn’t believe or understand my father was anyone else’s except my own.

Garrett Crowe Chattanooga, TN

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75

The Search

Searching for debris in an ocean of debris.

The ice is disintegrating, we are disintegrating but the plastic remains.

Bits of it clogging fish throats and bird bellies.

We worry celebrity’s security footage, imagine the happy couple searching their hotel room for bugs.

Its like that now you can lose your shit for a conversation you had in your own home with your mistress.

All six feet of plastic-tranny-multi-lost-cultural brown but not too brown of her.

Exotic, beige, like your furniture.

If your sister in-law drunk-in-love pushes you in the guts, hits you in an elevator the world clamors to see that you are human.

As if you had been another thing all along.

As if all that money made you less flawed than them.

All that cream and bling shining off your neck and fingers throwing up Rocs rubbing presidential shoulders jumping rachet on yachts in the Champagne showers.

The retirement community I work in has a street called Golden Rain and I have changed enough adult diapers to see the humor.

The buildings there are all beige and everyone retired from petrol companies.

They’re pumping our reservoirs dry to keep their golf courses green.

They’re dying soon, but ain’t we all.

It’s heating up and our grass is about to burn beige.

Our water is fixin’ to be beige, our kids will be beige and oh so exotic.

If you listen hard enough you can hear the ice sheets sliding into the ocean.

Put on your sun visor and pour another drink my cubes are melting and its about to be high tide forever.

The petrol companies have fracked Arkansaw into earthquake country.

Your faucet a blowtorch.

Nigeria is booming for Chevron and we say Bring Back Our Girls and nothing of the boys a whole school of them locked in set on fire or New Guinea’s zap guns against petrol’s power.

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We’ve taken the bait, we’ve Maybach-ed into it.

In our big bodies with our big faces guzzling petrol like Crystal rubbing it into our pores, our hair, our gas tanks.

Rainbow slicked petrolatum laden lids can’t take our eyes off the screen.

All we want to know is if he cheated on her beige-exotic-perfection her ass-shakin’ golden weave wearin’ shine sure is prettier than ours.

And if we can just watch her heart break under all that lip gloss.

If we can find a crack in woke up like this bitch than our tender broken pieces wont look so bad.

Cassandra Dallett Oakland, CA

Funereal A cat bounced from one side of the road

I picked it up by its tail,

to the other like a rubber

felt its lifeless weight, cradled it in my arm.

ball. I stopped to move it from traffic.

Its head swung and bled over my elbow, on my sleeve.

It slowed to a quiver.

I nudged it with my foot

I laid it down in the tall weeds,

and heard a gurgling meow, its final knell.

its paws still twitching like in its catching-a-mouse dream.

Eric Wayne Dickey Corvallis, OR

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77

Your Drawings for a Dollar Each Bankrupt, your gallery offers your drawings for a dollar each.

Wretched depictions of road kill, skinny-dip lovers drowning,

You introduced ten new lovers over a breakfast of worms and slugs.

I shook their hands and seated them at the dining room table and served

rubber-lipped pedophiles drooling: these images resist the usual toothless critique the newspapers offer humble local artists.

coffee in paper cups. One owned a Ford dealership in Ottawa.

Three were lawyers busy with briefs.

Two physicians with stethoscopes

You applied your aesthetic to me when we tried to feign marriage.

You penciled me into spirals and cones, a mockup of myself

offered to restart my heart.

A carpenter with big tool belt offered to hammer out my brains.

Three artists avoided glancing

too crude for museums to show.

You flung me around like tinsel as you designed a man to fit so tightly against your hip

at your framed work hung on the walls.

Now those lovers and I have fled, leaving your drawings unsold, unloved. The early spring air sighs

you’d never have to dissect him in public. Your design failed, and like your gallery drawings became an image of rank disgust.

like a deflated trumpet. Flecked with grace notes, the big light boiling through the gallery windows incorporates and forgives us.

Your drawings, shocked by the full spectrum, peel and flake away and forget themselves in erasure for which I’m sure you’re grateful.

William Doreski Peterborough NH

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Epitaph for,

The lost poem Which contained Everything And nothing.

Touched everyone, anyone Who desired The mystery of mysteries Words of words, which brought forth Language Both blessed & cursed us Married us, buried us and parted The heavens and the Deep blue seas Made Houdini disappear And broke the sole of Khrushchev’s soul Shot Kennedy And then shot a rocket To the moon

Sold us, indiscriminate Commanded us to war and glory And holocaust – unimagined imagination The scavengers & architects, history Fighting for space apocalyptic Down on Wall Street and in the Silicone Valley Stages of poetry and stages Of time living, breathing & dying On the battlefields Of life.

The Poem, Too early Too late Too bad The lost poem Which contained Nothing and everything Everything and nothing At all.

You left it home on the Kitchen table where your children Drew on it In crayon It is just as well.

R.M. Englehart Troy, NY

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springtime at the roadkill café crows feast ravenously on roadkill as snowbanks begin to melt they rise and swirl, like bloated flies descend again on grotesque wings as each car passes their raucous cries when interrupted dark cheers and laughter at their banquet having cawed their murderous grace to spring’s bounty they begin again daintily with precise pecks beaks tear at open guts , pierce startled eyes and trim the tendons from the bone their bereavement plumage iridescent in the sun Joseph Farina Sarnia, Ont. Canada

Roadkill The groundhog dead in the middle of the road may have dreamed of better roots on the other side, or maybe a larger burrow with a two car garage on the sunnier side where all is green and good, or maybe he was drawn by the scent of some great beauty he had met in an online chat room.

Whatever his dreams were they ended with headlights, the roar of wheels and the breaking of bones.

That does not mean groundhogs should not dream, just that they, like us, should measure the risks, all the time knowing that there are some things, despite the danger, still worth getting run over for.

Joe Farley Philadelphia, PA

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Dancing Fire Watch the boy dance fire for the girl, the circles and gestures of desire, the better options to dancing alone, even though he might get burned.

Watch his hands strike sparks, his legs fan embers, the sway of his hips feed flames to better light her way to him.

If she will follow his glow through the darkness, they might burn together.

I have danced fire, sought burning.

Tired of smoldering alone, I have raised arms, thrusted hips, adopted an arsonist’s obsession to get your attention from the edge of your circle of shade.

I have flared and sputtered, burned up and out, tried all I could do to light your way to something like home.

But you don’t see fire, at least not mine.

You burn bright for another dancer, who smokes and smolders, clouds the nighttime, stings my eyes and makes me dizzy, makes me weaker than love had already.

In all these years of dancing fire for your oceans, in all these years of dancing fire for your rains, and now you’re the flint that strikes and catches?

You’re the head of the match?

You’re the one who finally found your spark, who dances flames for the new boy, when I’m the one who’s burned out?

Your fire is like a star’s now— too far away to make me feel warm, but bright enough that I can see it everywhere.

Watch the boy dance fire for the girl, the way I danced fire for you, the man who never wanted firelight until now, when he burns only for another.

Had I known love burned this way, I would have chosen water instead.

Carlton Fisher Watertown, NY

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Freeway Ends

there are no natural predators to the armadillo but the Freeway runs across this landscape it is a tenet of their faith salvation can be smelled in exhaust no matter what disbelieving opossums might think (unclean) though I think they still complain in their clubs and fraternal organizations still refusing to allow any opossums in (unclean) and Head-lighted Death is always coming on blacktop hot as sun-burnt sky the armadillo know where the opossum go (unclean) but opossums they dream of the Freeway’s end and cool sands upon all their feet Mark A. Fisher Tehachapi, CA

Retronaut

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Winter Gathering of the Unsuccessful Caffè Florian, Piazza San Marco Venice They can’t right themselves anymore waiting for the world to come to its senses nearly decrepit lips and tongues and teeth diseased waiting for viewers to bother to view waiting for readers to bother to read these seven are wedded to their unsuccess

they’re invested in their unsuccess

thrive on their unsuccess “Sometimes I almost hear applause don’t you?

“Death means watching others bond

hearing others praised”

“Death is selflessness

ultimate community”

“Assumed I’d be a Mann someday didn’t you?

lunching with Einstein and Toscanini

paparazzi flashbulbs flashing” In their heads they’ve joined hordes of the unknown crammed into coliseums to adore the Latin Star movie extras bussed by the thousands into their One Minute heaps of the unknown floating in lakes left by the tsunami or stacked in extermination camps after liberation bodies blackening bloating indignity

—Hot vision of a busboy! all seven stunned watch the brown hands of a soccer stud as he wipes off tables at the Caffè Florian they look at his working-class nostrils look hard at the arrogant hard mouth he should be filling billboards in every city of the world the way he fills these artists’ heads so that for half a second they forget the songs the books the words they still have in them Alex M. Frankel Los Angeles, CA

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A Bum in Reno With a voice gentle – asked if I had a dollar.

I gave him two.

Then about the dime, pointed said, you dropped it.

I said, yeah.

Thanks not much of a word he said it twice – his eyes once more.

ROMANS ON THE HIWAY

Dead dogs And Broken children Lay along a well traveled road Flash bulbs burst As spectators and maggots Arrive And feast on travesty Grow fat upon loss Like Romans in the arena We gathered around our televisions...

True voyeurism Is found On the nightly news Joseph Gardner E. Lakewood, CA

I told him, be safe man.

Retronaut

He said, it’s hard.

Bill Gainer Grass Valley, CA

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An Announcement of Morning

I still wake to the sound of his cough coming from the kitchen, the folds and bends to the newspaper—the way coffee filters through the vents, announces to the house of morning,

the way he did. dressed in his blues— Baldwin Park Water Company emblem shining a lake breaking into nothing backed by the rise of the Santa Fe Dam—rocks stacked on rocks stacked upon more. it’s hearing the water

in his throat boil—unable to cough—the nine days I had to say goodbye that snickered away like a heartbeat.

it’s the weight of a thousand million rocks crashing, standing dead center.

losing a father is like hearing voices, waking to memories, mistaken Omen realities—those cold seconds opening eyes to realize Driving over a hill,

a sudden blackbird that six months could have passed circling, flapping, wings flashing red in a single night’s worth of sleep. over its flattened mate -- our car speeds past, and then they are behind us, Jeffrey Graessley and my hand is on his thigh, La Puente, CA and not a word is said between us.

Rasma Haidri Bodø, Norway Published as “Blackbirds” in The Wallace Steven’s Journal, 1998.

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Essays

A Dozen Canadas: Canadian Poetry in 2014

by James Deahl

C

anadian poetry can be studied in four broad periods. The first generation to publish work of high quality was the Confederation Poets,1 who flourished during the six decades between 1880 and 1940. Next came the Great Generation,2 who flourished during the seven decades between 1940 and 2010. Our third generation might be called the AtwoodLee-Ondaatje Generation after Margaret Atwood, Dennis Lee, and Michael Ondaatje.3 They have been going strong since the 1960s.

Finally, we come to the poets born after the close of World War II, the eldest member of this fourth generation being the present author.4 While the Atwood-Lee-Ondaatje Generation is producing first-rate poetry—indeed, they are the leading Canadian poets writing today—I wish to confine this essay to the poetry of the post-war generation, whose oldest members are sixty-eight years old and have been publishing poetry for the past forty-five years.

One might ask why I wish to focus on this fourth generation of Canadian poets. I do this because there is far too little critical attention paid to writers of what might be called the “post-Atwood” period. More importantly, it was this generation that broke the firm connection that tied Canadian poetry to the Confederation Poets and their narrow view of Canada.

The Confederation Poets, for the most part, wrote out of literary Romanticism. Thus, they were part of the Victorian, Edwardian, and Georgian movements. The Great Generation of Milton Acorn, Raymond Souster, and Al Purdy introduced literary Modernism to Canada.

And the Atwood-Lee-Ondaatje Generation continued this Modernist tradition, with a few

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forays into Postmodernism. With the exception of writers like Michael Ondaatje, who was born in Sri Lanka, the poets gathered here were all born in Canada (generally in Ontario or British Columbia) and all cut their teeth on the Confederation Poets and on the work of the Great Generation.

The post-war poets were different. For one thing, of the major Canadian poets born during the twenty years following the World War II, about two-thirds were born outside Canada, mainly in the United States. Other nations represented include Italy, England, Jamaica, Germany, Northern Ireland, Brazil, Hungary, and India. In fact, nearly half of all Canadian writers between the ages of fifty and seventy are American by birth. Needless to say, people born and raised outside Canada did not study Canadian history, geography, politics, and literature. They did not read the Confederation Poets. Starting with the 1970s, people were no longer exclusively writing out of the centuryold Canadian literary tradition that went back to the Confederation period. Rather, they were writing out of the tradition of American literature or British literature or Jamaican dub poetry. All one needs to do is compare Archibald Lampman to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or Isabella Valancy Crawford to Robert Browning to see the difference.

While Lampman, Crawford, Longfellow, and Browning were all Victorian poets, Victorian Romanticism played out quite differently in a world empire (England) than in an economic, and very recently political, colony (Canada).

And since the Civil War, the United States has displayed a national and cultural unity tha

Editor’s Note: this essay came about after a brief correspondence with Lucille, when I noticed in her bio that she had begun sending out poems when she turned 60!

My Life in a Book

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper From inspiration to publication

P

oems and stories lived in drawers for over fifty years, survivors of real and imaginary silverfish, and dust. They lived as lullabies I sang to myself in dark moments.

In school, I could never draw a straight line, or sing on key, but in my head I drew word pictures and heard them sing. Paper dolls spoke, clothes moved on my bedroom chair, and a stuffed elephant named Umbriago dried my tears. I am late at my singing though I have sung all my life.

My first poem was published when I was sixty. Living up to traditional expectations had led to work as a salesperson, model, realtor, teacher, and curriculum coordinator throughout schooling, marriage, children, and grandchildren until I retired and words came tumbling out of closets and drawers, leaking from rusty faucets, and reappearing as character actors.

Who was it who said, “Even a pygmy standing on the shoulders of giants can see further?”

I went to Sarah Lawrence and took a continuing education course in creative writing with Chuck Wachtel…a real giant. I gave him a hand-written poem to read, and he actually read it. The man had a see-through heart from his printed shirt to his fuchsia sneakers, and an intellect to match. He taught me the fine art of trying to say what I really meant through his knowledge and insight. He encouraged me to send my work out as soon as I learned to type.

And so I did.

My first acceptance came from Ground Torpedo Press (I had read their ad in the classified section of Poets and Writers). The editor had solicited poems for an anthology titled Women and Death, 108 American Poets.

Having lost my father when I was thirteen, and my sister at 37, I was no stranger to grief.

The fine art of grief never leaves. I struggled with the title of the poem I sent: “Ode to Judith, Liberated,” wavering between ode and owed, not knowing how to write a query letter, and buying a book to learn how to write one. “Yeah,” said my muse, in her doubting, nagging, anxious voice,” you’ve been rejected thousands of times in your life, just write the letter, jerk.”

Two years later, I received an acceptance letter, as thoughtful as the anthology itself.

The second paragraph read “What you want to know, I shall answer: YES. Your work made it through the long hours of editorial, fundraising, moving offices, getting married, endless typing, and tears. I am grateful for your participation in this project.”

I wanted to apply to graduate school for an MFA, but there was always another wedding to pay for, a beautiful new grandchild to visit, ill and dying parents to care for…nothing new to any of us as we age. So, I met new teachers at home: Rukhyser, Strand, Kunitz, Laux, Neruda, W.S. Merwin, Beaudelaire, Plath, and Hirshfield. They were just a few of the company I kept along with a giant slobbering Newfie, who lived with us, and.

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A Postcard from Okemah Turned from the camera’s eye, hovering, between river and bridge, the hung woman looks downstream, & snagged in the air beside her, the body of her young son.

To protect her son, the mother claimed she’d fired the gun.

The mob dragged them both from the jail bound in saddle string.

They are tassels on a drawn curtain; they are the closed eyes of the black boy who will find them while leading his cow to the riverbank; they are the bells

If you look closely you can see a pattern of tiny flowers printed on her dress; you can see an onlooker’s hand opened as if he’s just released a bouquet.

that will clang around the animal’s neck when it lowers its head to drink.

The boy dangles in midair like a hooked fish, his pants hanging

Now all of Okemah, Oklahoma is hushed.

Now even the children in attendance are dead.

After that day in 1911, it did not rain again.

To believe in God, this is the reckoning I claim.

from his ankles like a tail fin.

On the bridge the women pose in aprons & feathered bonnets, the men wear wide-brimmed hats with bowties or dungarees; there are three small girls leaning against the railing & a boy nestled beneath the wing of his father’s arm.

I count sixty-seven citizens & children staring at what must have been a flash & huff of smoke. The photographer must have stood on a boat deck, though from this angle he could have been standing on the water with his arms outstretched.

He must have asked them to smile at the camera & later, scrawled his copyright & condolences on the back of the postcards he made for the murdered man’s friends.

“The Negros got what would have been due to them under process of the law,” the sheriff said. His deputy had been shot when the posse searched the suspect’s cabin for stolen meat.

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It is Monday morning years too late.

All of the rocking chairs & shopping carts, all the mail boxes and choir pews are empty.

I cannot hear the psalms of salvation or forgiveness, the gospel of Mercy.

I cannot ask who is left more disfigured: the ones who are beaten or the ones who beat; the ones who are hung, or the ones who hang.

Terrance Hayes

A Bouquet Dropped on Laur a Nelson’s Gr ave

by Daniel McGinn

“A

Postcard from Okemah” is an ekphrastic poem based on a photograph of a lynching that was distributed as a collectable postcard. In addition to describing the postcard itself, Hayes also describes some of the occurrences that led up to the hanging of a mother and her son, Laura and Lawrence Nelson.

I have copied this version of the poem verbatim from the Terrance Hayes book, Wind in a Box. In an early published version of the poem, Hayes tells the reader that he came across this postcard in the book Without Sanctuary, a book that contains postcards, photographs and essays on the practice of lynching in America. James Allen, the author and editor of this book collected these historical documents over the course of twenty five years. I would assume the details about the incident which are braided into this poem were gleaned from James Allen’s book. You can see many of these his photographic documents at his website: http://withoutsanctuary.org In America everything is for sale, even a national shame. Till I came upon a postcard of a lynching, postcards seemed trivial to me, the way second hand, misshapen Rubbermaid products might seem now. Ironically, the pursuit of these images has brought to me a great sense of purpose and personal satisfaction.

Studying these photos has engendered in me a caution of whites, of the majority, of the young, of religion, of the accepted…Even dead, the victims were without sanctuary.

These photos provoke a strong sense of denial in me, and a desire to freeze my emotions. In time, I realize that my fear

of the other is fear of myself. Then these portraits, torn from other family albums, become the portraits of my own family and of myself. —James Allen There are very few photographs of lynched women and I am unaware of any other lynching photos of a mother and son. Hayes manages to bring a certain dignity to the photographed corpse of Laura Nelson both times he describes her, first, in the opening line: Turned from the camera’s eye, hovering, between river and bridge, the hung woman looks downstream,…

I think there is beauty in his use of language, that she is turned from the camera’s eye (which evokes a seeing eye) and looks downstream (which sounds as if she has some control over what she sees and who she is seen by). In a moment much later in the poem, he describes her again: If you look closely you can see a pattern of tiny flowers printed on her dress; you can see an onlooker’s hand opened as if he’s just released a bouquet.

If you look at the postcard of the two bodies and the onlookers on the bridge you can’t see enough detail to see an onlooker’s opened hand, or even the tiny flowers on Laura Nelson’s dress. I can see that there is a pattern on Laura Anderson’s dress. I cannot be certain of what that pattern is. I suppose it could be flowers but also assume that this is not a literal description.

This is poetry. I think there is an implication that lynching itself is a pattern, hence the enjambment at the first end-stop. Can I assume that Hayes

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Just Another Word For Plagiarism What’s Wrong With That!

by Linda Lerner

T

he early 90s. A poet I’d just met introduced me to Kenneth Patchen’s work.

“An amazing poet,” he said. “You must read him.” I did. Yes, amazing—in poem after poem lines from the other man’s work sprung out at me. When I confronted him about it, his rationale ranged from having done it unconsciously to the purposeful: how it would introduce people to.

Jump ahead about 18 years—a poetry reading at a Brooklyn venue. The featured poet began reading a couple of poems I thought were quite interesting until—was it my imagination, or did I hear a line from e.e. cummings? A Wallace Stevens image jumped out at me from another poem I’d recently taught in a literature for composition class. When I broached the subject to him, his response was, “no one here but you would have known that,” a reference, I guess, to my part time college teaching.

I mentioned this to someone who said that a poet, closely connected to him, recently asked someone to repeat a line from a poem she’d just read because she might want to use it in one of her own poems.

2013—An East Village venue. A recent MFA grad is reading a very long poem. Once again, lines from Eliot, Yeats, and others were clearly mixed in with his own work. Someone explained to me that the technique is called “mashing;” he assured me that credit to the poets is given in his book. But no attempt to reveal this was A few weeks later the same thing happened at another poet’s reading.

There was Eliot again—a popular poet to steal from—(I’ve long wished I could have come

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up with that line from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons”) and Yeats, etc. When I asked her about it, she smiled proudly, and said, “Yes,” pleased because I was able to identify the poets. She didn’t call it “mashing,” as the other person did, but appropriation. No attempt was made to conceal or to reveal it.

Ezra Pound’s oft repeated cry, “make it new,” was not, I believe, a signal for poets to usurp lines they like when failing to come up with their own. He was referring to the use of literary allusions, references to other works, and probably to the college technique Eliot used in “The Waste Land;” he wanted to publish a poem without notes because, Eliot said, it distracts from the poem.

Is this just taking it one step further? I went on line to see if what I had witnessed were just isolated examples or if this was a new trend emerging. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case.

Toby Fitch in The Guardian (September 22, 2013) describes the outrage that occurred on discovering two plagiarists among Australian poets: “dozens of Graham Nunn’s poems are blatant rip-offs,” he said. The same is true of prizewinning poet Andrew Slatterly”s work. Slatterly offhandedly apologized and said that he should have credited the sources of his “mash-ups” but justified it by saying that he was writing centos, a form of poetry which consists of other people’s poems. (Toby Fitch article: http://www.theguardian.com/

commentisfree/2013/sep/23/australianpoetry-plagiarism).

Kenneth Goldsmith’s article, “It’s Not Plagiarism. In the Digital Age, It’s ‘Repurposing’” (The Chronicle of Higher Education/The Chronicle Review, 9/11/2011: http://chronicle. com/article/Uncreative-Writing/128908/ ) quotes critic Marjorie Perloff as using the term “unoriginal genius” to describe poets who are just “moving (around) information.”

I’ve long thought that the exercise driven MFA workshops contributed to this tendency now made easier through our reliance on technology and the internet whereby poetry becomes a game. Perloff says, “Today’s writer resembles more a programmer than a tortured genius…” more “a writing machine.”

It would be naïve to believe that the new century’s digital age would not impact poetry, as it has every other area of our lives. I can imagine a 16th century poet raising strong objections to the free verse being written today.

Poetry will undergo changes, as it always has,

and continue to evolve into new forms. But, that does not mean we have to become mere “programmers” or machines.

The joy in writing for me has always come from the images and combinations of words I can create to convey the feeling I want in a poem. For the poem to move someone else. For it to feel alive, not perfectly crafted, but be a little rough edged.

Toby Fitch concludes his essay with a reference to the first line of John Ashbery’s “The Recent Past” goes: “Perhaps we ought to feel with more imagination.” Perhaps all poets should think about that when writing, when the temptation to steal another poet’s lines, instead, strikes them.

Brooklyn, NY Originally published in Small Magazine Review, May – June 2014

The Poem in Public

by Ellaraine Lockie

R

eading in front of forty people at a formal poetry event can be a panicstricken experience, unless it’s preceded by a course at Toastmasters, a double martini or a beta blocker. I know because I was terrified the first time I read at a local venue called Waverley, Propranolol being my pick for a fix.

But the occasion turned out to be more education and enjoyment than ordeal. People applauded in honor of my virgin status, and no small amount of my pleasure that evening was listening to some good poetry in the South San Francisco Bay area. I began looking forward to Friday night forays into this local poetry scene. I also became aware of how reading my work out loud, especially to practiced poets,

directly improved my own poems.

This awareness came about in small recognitions of words/phrases that had sounded fine in silent readings but didn’t quite work when voiced out loud. Rhythm, syntax or awkward line-length problems would announce themselves as embarrassingly loud stumbling blocks. This was similar to what had happened previously to me after poems were published, and I then saw problems that I hadn’t noticed before. Those poems would be edited and sent out again as better poems in subsequent publishings. It’s never too late to improve a poem that needs more attention, and reading venues can help us do this.

There is another significant way that

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publicly reading to others may improve the quality of poems. We’re more aware of accountability. Just knowing that we are destined to stand up and deliver a poem in person to people—many of whom we know, as opposed to strangers reading it silently and privately, perhaps prompts us to write a more composite poem. Using a combination of people, places and events to get at a truth, rather than relying upon exclusively personal experiences, often results in a poem that is better and more relevant to readers and listeners.

This kind of poem is more comfortable to read out loud because we are not confessing secrets or betraying friends and family, or if we are, it is well camouflaged.

Reading out loud for an audience also encourages many of us to take our poems out

of first person in favor of third person and to employ what is commonly called poetic license. These can be beneficial strategies, giving us the freedom to create uninhibitedly and therefore maybe more honestly. Emily Dickinson knew what she was talking about when she said to tell all the truth but to tell it “slant” when writing poetry. Ms. Dickinson didn’t use a professional setting like Waverley in which to aurally hone her craft. If she had, however, maybe the Queen Recluse would have required a beta blocker too—or more accurate for her time, a double sherry.

Sunnyvale, CA First published in Waverley Writers: Celebrating 25 Years, 1981–2005

The First “No School” Anthology of Los Angeles Poets

by Bill Mohr

A

year before Grover Jacoby’s pair of magazines [Variegation and Recurrance] ceased publication, two young poets who had studied under Tom McGrath started their own magazine, Coastlines, a title intended to suggest its commitment to place and genre. The founding editors of Coastlines, Gene Frumkin and Mel Weisburd, were working as assistant editors on California Quarterly toward the end of its four-year run, and the overlap of their editorial projects extended to the roster of poets published in both magazines. In fact, as one can see from referring back to the chart on page 30, Frumkin and Weisburd also published a significant number of poets who had appeared in Jacoby’s magazines. Coastlines lasted a total of twenty-

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two issues, with its final one appearing in 1964, which means that Los Angeles had at least two poetry magazines being regularly produced for almost a decade and a half. Perhaps most remarkable of all, none of these magazines had any institutional support whatsoever. Frumkin worked as a journalist and editor for a garment industry publication in downtown Los Angeles and Weisburd spent his time trying to monitor the deteriorating air quality in Los Angeles for the AQMD. In maturing from mimeographed beginnings to national recognition, the total number of issues produced by McGrath, Frumkin, and Weisburd far exceeds the lifespan of the average little magazine cited in Donald Allen’s The New American Poetry.

The Fine Art of Revision

by Judith Skillman

T

here are two aspects to the revising process: technique and content.

I’m going to focus more, here, on content, as that is the part of the process that is most often given short shrift, while style, technique and grammar get the lion’s share of attention.

Style can be covered relatively quickly by keeping a few guidelines in mind. Never confuse your reader unnecessarily by misusing punctuation, verb tenses, subject/verb agreement, and confusing pronoun references.

Strunk & White’s guide The Elements of Style is a quick read and ever-ready reference for any writer. The poem, if it is to succeed, must do so on its merits, not by reliance on artificial devices or tricks. The rule of thumb here is never confuse your reader unnecessarily by language usage. Poems can be confusing enough.

While perusing these suggestions for indepth revision, feel free to take what you like and leave the rest. Revision is an individual process; what works for one poet doesn’t work for another. It is only by trial and error that we find the tools to allow us to deepen our poems and continue our personal growth in the art and craft of verse writing.

There are many ways you can revise your poem for content. Think of a poem as a room in a house. When remodeling a room there are many options. One can choose any from any number of possibilities from rearranging the furniture, to painting a wall, adding built-in shelving, to pushing out one part of the exterior to create additional space. Even a simple touch, such as replacing that faded mock-Persian rug with a brighter carpet, or a patterned piece, makes a difference. The scope of choices for revising each and every piece we write becomes an unlimited palette when we remain open.

It’s important not to view any particular version of a piece as “finished.” Rather, keep your mind open to the assortment of choices for revision, which are limitless. Write, write again; work, re-work. Ultimately, as you refine and polish your poem, you will find the gist of the piece. It may be quite different than where you thought you were headed when you started out.

Suggestions for In-Depth Revision:

Select the one line that you feel has the most energy, and begin another poem with that line. To quote Roethke: “The problem is to seize upon what is worth preserving in immature work--the single phrase of real poetry, the line that has energy--and to build it into a complete piece that has its own shape and motion.”

Re-write the poem from another point of view, either personal (“I”, “We”); imperative (“You”); or objective (“He,” “She,” “It,” “One,” “They”).

Change the stanza lengths to a set number, if the poem is blocky or has no stanza breaks, or if the stanzas seem arbitrary. To do this, read the poem aloud and listen for natural pauses in the piece. Then re-write the poem in these set stanzas. Or you may wish to take the stanza breaks out and write another version using different stanza lengths. As you do this, you will need to cut out “little word padding.”

This approach has an added advantage: paring down inevitably strengthens the language of your poem.

Choose a number of beats per line-anything from dimeter (two beats) to iambic pentameter (five beats, the standard for a sonnet or other formal poetry such as blank/formal verse.) Rewrite the poem, beginning with the stanza or line you feel is strongest.

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Failure (musings about art)

by Norman J. Olson

A

s those who know me know, I publish art essays and occasional poetry in the literary press… since my first publication in 1984, I have published hundreds of poems and essays and pretty much all of my mature artwork (about 450 pieces created from the mid 1980s until now)… lately, I have not been sending out many unsolicited images for publication as three journals publish and have published, images of pretty much all of the work I have… a few months ago, the editor of one of those journals asked if I had a gallery of my work someplace where people who were interested could see and maybe buy it… my quick response was that I did not… but that images of my older works could be seen on my web site http://www.normanjolson.com and a Google image search for “Norman J. Olson” would turn up lots of images of my published works from the past five or ten years…

But, I have been thinking about this comment for the past couple months and want to say a few things about my thoughts on the subject of showing, buying and selling my art… and about the big time art market and art world of art museums…

I have recently taken to calling myself a “noncommercial” artist… in that, I have never sold art for money and never made a living from art… I never really tried to do those things, mainly because I never have thought that there was enough money in the sale of my art to keep a gnat alive for more than a few hours… but, I do occasionally put together a disc of all my images and send it to an art museum in the hopes that the museum will be willing to take a donation of my collection of originals so, my kids do not have to deal with all of this art when I am gone and so it will be

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kept together and maybe even shown… so far, none of the museums has shown any interest at all… usually, what I get is a form letter about the tightness of their exhibition schedule or a simple “thanks for your interest” rejection.

Okay, so I know from this experience that my art is not something that is collectable by a museum… or that could ever be a success in the world of big time art… where museums fight over jasper johns, or somebody and billionaire collectors pay hundreds of millions of dollars for paintings… why is that? Maybe the art is just not very “good”, not well enough done to make it to the big time… I know that is the opinion of the dealers and museum people… I hope it is not true, because it seems to me that my art is as “good” which is to say, as rich and thoughtful as I can make it… I try to be honest with it and let the art come naturally from whatever subconscious reservoir of images may exist in the tangled gray matter in my skull… but maybe that is not enough and that I just do not have the genius of a jasper johns or somebody… well, if that is the case, unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about it but try to accept my inadequacy… and hope the fucking experts are wrong… an encouraging note is that they have been wrong on this topic before, selecting Genome, over Manet, a hundred and twenty years ago…

On the other hand, maybe my work is not entirely without value but is quirky to the extent that it does not fit into the mainstream where the galleries and museums live… there are a million singers with interesting unusual voices and songs that never make the big time… John Prine, for example… maybe that is my thing… my art is interesting and unusual, but has limited appeal, in my case, limited to the poet

Reviews A Shot across the Bow—Being a Cornucopia of Titles Piling up on My Desk reviews by rd armstrong

B

ack in the mid 90s, you know the good ole, bad ole days, I used to run a little litarts monthly mag called the Lummox Journal.

It had a pretty good run, about a decade, and it got to the point where I didn’t have to do ALL! the work, ‘cause I had people comin’ out of the woodwork, just to be included. But in the early days, when I was getting the kinks out I used to write these short-hand reviews for all the poets that would send me in their books to be reviewed. I call ‘em short reviews but, really, they were more like blurbs.

Now here’s the weird thing about all this (aside from not planning on this publishing gig being my last miserable job before they put me on lockdown with all the other incorrigibles)…I have a confession to make: I’m not much of a reader, I’m slow and my mind tends to wander (and the CRS* doesn’t help); it’s probably the reason I gravitated to poetry in the first place.

It’s not that I can’t read (didn’t I just read about 600 poems?)—I can but I think I might be a little slow. I’m kinda more visual, ya know?

So, here I am, running this monster of a poetry anthology that people are starting to get on board with and I still can’t find reviewers!

What the..? So, I’ve had to bring back the old style of reviewing. And here are a year’s worth of chapbooks (and a few books too) sent to

me by people who think My Words have some kind of weight?! My goal here is to bring these books to your attention. And please, if you see something that looks interesting, please try to find and order the book in question.

Rick Sings by Phil Taggert; Brandenburg Press, 2014; ISBN 978-0-9856138-1-5, $15.

This slim volume by the respected poet from the Ventura area, Mr. Taggert, concerns Phil’s brother Rick, a street person with mental issues. But it also concerns a family that for whatever reasons has “gone wrong” with siblings lost to death or mental illness. Rick intersects with Phil every so often, usually when he needs something…but sometimes Phil needs something from Rick as well. I found this to be a heart-wrenching book.

A Half a Dozen of This & That by Annie Menebroker; Uphillbothways Press, 2013.

This clever little “book” of 8 pages is made from a single piece of paper, a few cuts this way and that in the middle and some clever folding and BINGO you got a booklet. And then you put some excellent poetry in it by Annie Menebroker and “Bob’s your uncle!”

I gotta tip my hat to Eva West for figuring this out…It’s really cool!

Soul Resin—New Poems by Denis Robillard; Caledon House Press, 2009 In the tradition of DIY and funky small/

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underground presses like Kendra-Steiner, Caledon gives us this chapbook of poetry

by Canadian Poet Denis Robillard. It’s a somewhat haphazard production, but if you are interested in reading something more thoughtful than the usual drek, you should check this out…despite it’s being 5 years old.

Denander, RD Armstrong, Wayne Mason, Puma Perl, David Dannov, t. Kilgore splake to name but a few. Perhaps if you know of some of these workers, you might want a copy of this collection.

Redneck Yoga by Tim Hunt; Finishing Line Press, 2010; ISBN 978-1-59924-658-1, $12 There’s a lot of tongue-in-cheek poetry in this chapbook. If that’s your thing then you are in for a real treat!

It’s a good thing Nancy Drew didn’t know these Hardy Boys! There would have been hell to pay for sure! Dickey puts a spin on these lovable, albeit naïve brothers, their pals and parents. Four Stars!

Employees Only edited by Chris Bodor; Poet Plant Press, 2009; www.boder.org I don’t know if I’d want to work fulltime for a company who’s employee of the year is Karl Koweski. I did do some part-time work for Chris Bodor, as it turns out. This chapbook has an employee roster that reads like a who’s who of small/underground press so-and-so’s: Henry

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The Hardy Boys Poems by Eric Wayne Dickey; Beard of Bees Press, 2013;

www.beardofbees.com

Germs, Viruses, and Catechisms by Ed Coletti; Civil Defense Poetry, 2013; ISBN 978-0-9786913-9-4, $10.

Sometimes a tiny book such as this one by Ed Coletti, a resident of Santa Rosa, CA, a poet and painter…anyway sometimes a book such as this can house some pretty damn big ideas.

Buy this book, it’s worth it!

Grassroots by Jared Smith; Wind Publications, 2010; ISBN 978-1-936138-09-8 Jared Smith is a deep thinking man with one foot in the west of old and one foot in the present. He’s often referred to as being a lyric poet, yet he can write with a muscularity that overrides the western stereotypes of tough hombres, tough landscapes and tough situations. Four Stars for Grassroots! pOETSATTVA by Ellen Marie Metrick; Water Women Press, ISBN 0-9702648-0-1, $6.

These are solid poems about loving and living in this life. They approach their topics head on, not getting lost in metaphor or other fancy BS that is so much a part of our culture today. A simple yet solid collection by poet Ellen Metrick. Well worth the search.

Bored to Death edited by Luka Fisher; 2013.

Luka Fisher is a painter. I like his style.

He’s no Pablo Picasso, but old Pablo might have liked his work…but Luka is also into other forms of artistic expression, leaning in the direction of the grotesque and I believe the Bored to Death series is his first dabbling into publishing This is a simple chapbook with some interesting work from Hart D. Fisher and Sim Jackson Jr.

Street Value #1 edited by Dave Roskos; Vendetta Books, 2014 Another little chapbook collection featuring poems by the late Ed Galing, AD Winans, Donald Lev, John Bennett, Doug Drame,Guy R. Benning, David S. Pointer, myself, Mike James, Kit Knight and more…If you don’t know who these characters are, then you need a some educating, friend, ‘cause these are the foundation stones that make it possible for poets like yourself to exist! A funky but fantastic collection!

Balance by Robbi Nester; White Violet Press, 2012; 978-0615607-0, $12 A collection of poems about yoga positions, with illustrations! Grab your yoga mat and let’s head down to Bluff Park for some stretching and sight-seeing!

Afterwards we can swing by Jamba Juice for some wheatgrass shots! Don’t forget to align your chakras!

Bored to Death No 1, edited by Luka Fisher; 2014.

I’m not sure what the deal is here…unless the one mentioned above was a sort of prequel to No. 1. But in the year that followed BtD, Mr. Fisher got his act together. Bored to Death #1 is pretty dang cool! It’s got some amazing illustrations and some cool photos of artwork

by Kate Mills. The poetry isn’t bad, tho there is some that I couldn’t make heads or tales out of. The stuff that worked for me was by Kizzy Kirk, Colin Peterson, Shea Bilé, and some knucklehead going by RD Armstrong…I’ve got a few copies if anyone is interested.

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Landscape of a Woman and a Hummingbird

by Joseph Milosch; Poetic Matrix Press, 2014; ISBN 978-0-9860600-3-8.

If On Walden Pond was a collection of poems, then Mr. Milosch could have written it instead of Henry D. Thoreau. This collection of poems speaks gently of a time of peaceful understanding of the natural world. I strongly recommend it!

Near Occasions of Sin by Louis McKee; Cynic Press; ISBN 0-9673401-6-0, $15 The late Louis McKee (he died in late 2011 at the age of 60) was a greatly revered member of the Philadelphia poetry scene. He published 4 more books after this one came out. But the quality of the poems in this collection are top notch! Highly recommended.

The Piety of the Open Eye by Suzanne Frost; Sage Trail Press, 2012; 978-0-615-62284-2, $9.95

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“ forget memories that give misery” is the first line that caught my attention in this collection from poet Suzanne Frost. The poem is called Shade. It lures the reader inside, where there are many things to see and think about.

Forgive Me, Tiny Robots by Eric Wayne Dickey; Argotist Ebooks, 2013 This book contains poems, or so we are told, from the poet’s Twitter feed. At first that seems like an interesting notion, but after a while the novelty wears off and like most tweets, one sees the vacuous nature of the “ found” poem style.

140 characters my ass!

Beyond Campfire Ashes by T. Kilgore Splake; self-published, 2012; ISBN 978-1-4675-0856-8, $15.

Brother Splake is up to his old tricks again, writing lyrical poetry about nature; occasionally turning a line out that makes one go, “hmmm!” This book contains a number

of long poems, centered on the page to let you know that it’s indeed a long poem. While I admire Splake’s ability to successfully selfpublish, I find his poems to be devoid of much emotion. Not really my cup of tea.

The Beauty of Muttliness by Trista Dominqu; Self Published, 2013; 978-1-4937450-5-0, $10.

Trista pays homage to her ancestors…she is a microcosm of the concept of the American “melting pot”, being a blend of Native American (Sappony), Irish, Hispanic, and Jewish. She also honors the influence of such diversity in her decision-making, everyday life. A great little read.

PN Review 218 edited by Michael Schmidt; XL Publishing Services UK, 2014; £6.99.

If you’re interested in what the upper echelon of literature in the U.K. looks like these days then this beautiful perfect bound magazine is the one for you, and it comes out SIX times a year! Clearly, funding is much better over there!

In the spring issue are examples of painting, as many poems as articles, but the reviews

outnumber both. This is pretty highbrow stuff and I’m not sure what they must think when they get their annual Lummox, but they keep sending issues, so it must be worth it to them.

Hold-Outs the Los Angeles Poetry Renaissance, 1948-1992 by Bill Mohr; University of Iowa Press, 2011; ISBN 978-1-60938-073-1.

Normally, I don’t read books like this, but I do like to read about the history of the Small Press, or some aspect of it. It’s a good book for the most part, tho it’s author hails from academia, so it’s no romp. In some places, it can get a bit dry (remember that I’m a slow reader) but I blazed my way through it. For the most part, it’s a solid read. Professor Mohr knows what’s going on. And surprisingly, I knew of or knew a number of the characters that populated the book. This history ends right before Raindog the poet and publisher emerged in San Pedro. Maybe someday someone will write a history that finds a small half page to mention me and my Lummox. Meanwhile, I can strongly recommend HOLD-OUTS to anyone with a curiosity for this interesting time period. * * *

Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of A nais Nin 1939-1947 edited by Paul

Herron with an introduction by Kim Krizan; Published by Swallow Press/Ohio University Press in association with Sky Blue Press, 2013, ISBN-13 978-0-8040-1146-4 review essay by

Nancy Shiffrin

“I

am the woman of tomorrow... a highly developed instrument seeking not to be rendered deaf by machine guns, to be able to carry on its vibrations, its extraordinary wave perceptions.” She is Anais Nin. Her favorite word is transcend. The violence she

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Michael Adams, born and raised in Somerville, TN, completed his graduate studies in Creative Writing at the University of Memphis in 2012 with a book-length collection of poems entitled White Trash Griot, born from his experience growing and existing in the Mississippi Delta. His creative works have appearedNumber in HieroglyphThree and In Pieces, and he recently had a critical essay • 2014 published in Black Magnolias.

Featuring the Winners of the 1st Annual LUMMOX Press Poetry Prize: Linda Albertano has run the gamut from the political to the ridiculous, unleashing her language JohnonSweet —1st Place William Taylor, —2ndAsplace Foskey —3rd place unsuspecting audiences in both the US andJr. Europe. a poet, Christina She represented Los Angeles

at the One World Poetry Festival in Amsterdam, and she’s featured on the Venice Poetry Wall at Ave. with such local notables as Jim Morrison, Viggo Mortensen and Exene Cervenka.

Also InWindward This Issue…

At the LA Theatre Center she presented a full-length work complete Nightingale, with artists, normal, dancers Terrance and a Guth, Rasma Haidri, Katherine Michael Adams, Linda Albertano 30-piece marching band from South Central LA. In the new millennium she studied West African Oberst, Al Ortolani, Carl Palmer, Hamilton, Gary Hanna, Lois M Ron Alexander, Matt Amott, music (kora and bolon) in Guinea, returning to perform for more than a decade such venues Jeff Parks,atLorine Parks, as Michael, Harrod, David Haskins, Stash Cynthia Anderson, RD Armstrong, the Getty, Royce Hall and the Sacred Music Festival withDuane kora virtuoso, Prince Diabate.

Simon Perchik, Richard K. Perkins Hempeck, Diana Henning, Alisha Attella, Shawn Aveningo, II, Bob Perkins, Robert Plath, Herrmann, Debbie Okun-Hill, Kim Baker, Robert Baker, Michael After Ronald Aden Alexander was diagnosed with AIDS in 1995, he abandoned a successful M.P. Powers, Ester Prudlo, Mitch Leanne Hunt, M.J. Iuppa, Edward Basinski, Dane Baylis, Linda career in psychology and prepared for the worst. But advances in treatment reaped a Lazarus-like Rayes, Amelia Raymond, Kevin Jamieson, Jr., George Q Johnson Benninghoff, Barbara Blatner, recovery and a need for new horizons. What happened next was Poetry. Since 2009, Ron’s work Ridgeway, Denis Robillard, Judith Jr., Allan Kaplan, Janne Karlson Byron Beynon, Brenton Booth, has been published in literary journals and three anthologies, and most notably, he founded the Robinson, Robert Rodriguez, Gary Kay, Frank Kearns, Lalo Lynne Bronstein, Ronnie Brown, Whitman-Stein Poetry Fest in Santa Barbara, a celebration of LGBTQ poets and poetry.

Natasha Romanova, David Roskos, Kikiriki, Marie Kilroy, Ron Heather Browne, B.J. Buckley, Walter Patricia Koertge, Raundi Moore-Kondo, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Matt Amott is a West Coast wandering poet, musician and photographer whoRuhlmann, co-founded Six Ft Scruggs, Phas Kotsybar, Laurie Kruk, Valentina Cano,Press.

Fern Carr, Wolf Swells He has done live,James as well on-air readings in many cities acrossEric thePaul U.S.Shaffer, He has Aftab Yusuf Shaikh, Nancy Shiffrin, Robert Lanphar, Carstens,been Peggy Carter, Alan in numerous publicationsJustin but heLangford, still prefers to leave free mini chapbooks in various bars, Lucille G. Shulklapper, Katie Laura Munoz-Larbig, Laws, Catlin, Grace Maura coffeeCavalieri, houses and brothels in his travels.

Matt likesKyle to write on cocktail napkins because they Simpson, Linda Singer, Judith Brent Leake, John B. Lee, Frances Cavell, Ann Cefola, James Cihar, only have enough room for a short poem, are usually around a bottle of Old Crow and possibly Skillman, Rick Smith, Wanda LeMoine, Linda Lerner, Bernice Todd Cirillo, Ann Clarke, Wanda within a few feet of a really good jukebox.

Smith, Ken Stange, Winnie Star, Lever, Lyn Lifshin, Norma Linder, Clevenger, Jeanette Clough, JuliaPark.

Stein,Her Kevin Sullivan, Jane Lipman, Lockie, Benny Coles, Ed Coletti, Sharyl Cynthia Anderson lives in the high desertEllaraine near Joshua Tree National poems have Patti Sullivan, John Sweet, Lynn Gerald Luza,Artists Embassy International, Tait, Collin, Corey Cook, Cooper,journals appeared in Blair numerous andLocklin, receivedRadomir awardsV.from Mary Talley, William Taylor, Justin Luzader, Amy MacLennan, Garret Crowe, Ann Curran, Santa Barbara Writers Conference, Santa Barbara Arts Council, and TheE.Wildling Museum.

HerDallett, books James includeDeahl, In the Mojave, Visions, and Shared VisionsJr., II.Charles She is co-editor of G. theMurray Thielmann, JohnShared Macker, Ellyn Maybe, Jenny Cassandra anthology A Bird Black As theMcBride, Sun: California Poets onDaniel Crows & Ravens.

Thomas, H Lamar Thomas, Tom Terry McCarty, Eric Dickey, Liz Dolan, Trista Thomas, Tim Tipton, Judith McGinn, Mary McGinnis, Michael Dominque, William Doreski, RD Armstrong aka Raindog Meloan, began hisJoseph most D. recent incarnation as aToler, poet in the early ‘90s.

He Susan Topping (Silver), Milosch, Robert Eisenhart, R.M. Englehart, has 18 chapbooks and 9 books to his name and has been published in over 300 poetry magazines, AJ Urquidi, Eduardo del Valle, Elaine Mintzer, Michael Mirolla, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Joseph anthologies, and e-zines. He also operates theMark Lummox Press which published theAlias Lummox Rolland Vasin, Velaj, Grace Danielle Mitchell, Mitchell, Farley, Joseph Farina,blogs Carlton Journal for 11 years; the Little Red Book series (60 titles) and the new RESPECT series of perfect Vermeer, Lawrence Welsh, Kari Tony Moffeit, Bill Mohr, Ivan Fisher, Mark A. Fisher, Christina bound collections of poetry (45 titles and counting).

Raindog has labored to serve the world of Wergeland, Jackson Wheeler, de Monbrison, Dave Moore, Ian Foskey, Dennis Formento, Alex small press poetry years. LUMMOX is one of his newestLinda projects.

Visit the website Whittenberg, Phil Woods, Mullens, C. Mulrooney, Evan M. Frankel, Bill Gainer, Joefor the past 20 at www.lummoxpress.com/lc/ John Yamrus, Chris Yeseta, Myquest, Lois Nanstais, Robbi Gardner, Gerald Garcia, Katherine and Kit Zak Nester, Benjamin Newell, Barbra Gordon, Jeffrey Graessley, Ryan Alisha Attella lives in Long Beach with her two blond children and one black cat. In their tiny apartment she sits and listens to the night conversations between the fog horns and the oil horses.

To order the complete 216 page book, please visit our website • www.lummoxpress.com/lc/