Editor’s Note There’s a kind of current running through the poems of this issue; As I assembled the selections, it seemed to me similar themes were dripping between the poems and trickling down their sides. I don’t know if it’s just the end of a long year, or a kind of over identification with winter, but there is loss in these poems, both imminent and shivering now. These poets are sorting through shards, and attempting to recall the whole. There was was another theme that dripped, memory. In that way, this issue seemed to be about impermanence, and drift, about an element of change that carried away much while leaving just enough to recognize the hewn path through what had seemed solid. But I think you will also find, as I did, hope. Not a sappy kind of hope that forgets the challenging issues here will take time to resolve. Time was another drop: time lost, passing, and recalled. The hope was there perhaps, in the time, in the healing waters washing away what must go- in enjoying what was in your hands, before it returns to the stream. Even the chaotic pieces, here and there, are united in this flow. I hope this issue can close a year, and make ready for you a new raft. May we all be present, and ready, to go into river. -Stuart Livingston Canton, Assistant Editor
Max West Sue Daly Buddy Lamorey April C. La Torre AieshaJ Randy White Tyler Meredith Sage Robbins henry 7. reneau, jr. Jorge Quintana Gene Avery Dianna Henning
Into River A river by itself is very quiet – it is only when it collides that it communicates beyond deep whispers. To be more accurate, when objects collide with river. Objects with some resistance left, the sounds you hear are the music of their last gasps, water tearing their forms away, which seems painful when we don't remember they are being made into river
MAX WEST
October 1, 2017 When Las Vegas shook the nation, we watched our TVs in horror. Rock legend Tom Petty died the next day. Listening to his music lately, even songs I’ve never heard before somehow feel familiar. I dedicated a poem to him at the reading last week. It was only fitting, since his name and a song he wrote were part of the poem. It was the least I could do. Maybe the most. The dead hang heavy in the air until they’re good and ready to leave. Their essence hovers around us like thick gray mist in a damp fog. It doesn’t matter if we’re not ready to say goodbye. It’s about them now. They hold all the power. If we’re lucky, they might sing a few more songs for us until they go. They watch us watch them on YouTube. When Sinatra died I put something he said on my computer at work. Words I don’t remember now wrapped around the screen in an endless loop. That velvet voice followed me around for months, his essence haunting, hovering. Wonder what Sinatra and Petty had in common? I hear they both liked Elvis.
SUE DALY
Shatters (Blank Verse in Golden Ratio)
BUDDY LAMOREY
“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.” —Anne Morrow Lindbergh I’d held the shell beside my ear and from
its white and salmon shaded spirals heard the oscillating sonance of a sea.
Twisting blinds I peered out the window
to see the view. But, faded, doubled in sunlight, the glass reflected all within: b(l)indingso water, sand, and sky then synthesized
to a bright glare scattering contents inhere. I shuttered at the cynosure- the shell then slippedfell into shatters on the floor- I stooped and gathered scattered shards and cusped them in
my palms. Had felt that shankha’s song pass silent upon the calcareous concrete.
But faintly from beyond the lightend walls the distant crashing call of coiled waves
breathing against the corneous skies and sands, restoring jagged pearls back to their nest
abreast some golden lamp- and glancing there upon a canvas framed above and observedthat in the thick and oily impressions of a house beside the sea, all are one.
Memories by changing seasons Here, never forget the color green— but blue? Day after day is dampened to wonder what else waits. Let’s live somewhere without: Rise every morning to the sun of every drawn childhood landscape. Smile through sunglasses where our crow’s feet disappear behind tinted glass, Stroll for coffee or tea without wading through persistent moisture. Our testimony can be vast and detailed Hewn from meticulous pro- and con- lists. But few things (whispers, kisses, cats) Can commence the day Like sunshine breaking through the blinds in our bedroom.
APRIL C. LA TORRE
After the Funeral Your Lakers’ jersey, bought with your first afterschool paycheck, hangs on the west wall in brother’s apartment. Sun rays transform it to a memorial vestment of kaleidoscopic rainbows. Sister has your first white hightop walking shoes resting on her bedroom dresser, their reflection doubled in the large mirror: scuffed toes, rundown heels, dirty knotted shoe strings, mementos of sunny afternoon tree climbin’. Your Dominguez High football jersey, Number 12 , plastic wrapped, hangs between a white dress shirt and green work jacket in mama’s closet. Nights pass in a shadow filled dreamless sleep, suddenly I am awake amid the silence of not hearing your key in the door. -In memory of Scooby(March 13, 1988-May 30, 2007)
AIESHAJ
M/V The Cattle of The Sun
RANDY WHITE
Off Port Hardy, a salmon-season at sea behind, we lie sunbound, stinking of fishguts, when honeyed voices from a ship big as an island announces over the waters: “Come, Fall under Sin City's spell with dancers, singers & performers as the world's capital of glitz and glamour hits the stage with JACKPOT! Then join us for Ice Games inspired by Monopoly, this winner-take-all showdown presents amazing feats of athleticism & artistry. Pass Go, Collect an amazing adventure!” Perimedes & Eurylochus sprung up at once … “ Our Prohibition Party will take you back to the days of rum running & flappers, live jazz, & handcrafted cocktails. Put on your pearls & celebrate, speakeasy-style. Ravishing voices offering SPIN IT TO WIN IT: Video reel slot machines, such as Lil Red, Quick Hit, Blazing 7's and Mayan Chief.” An angler offers… treacherous bait in the offshore swell, Whips his long rod – hook sheathed in an oxhorn lure – & whisks up little fishes he flips on the beach break … “CRAPS$ LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL … Baby needs a new pair of shoes! Step up to the table, make your wager, roll the dice & hope that Lady Luck is by your side. At Wonderland Island $$$, our chefs twist their culinary kaleidoscopes to invent an elaborate dreamscape of never-before-seen fare. The story begins as you find your element— Wind, Ice, Fire, Water, Earth and Dreams— each with a selection of small or shareable fantasies. Magical elixirs whisper "Drink me." Venture down the rabbit hole and ask yourself: What is real and what is imagined? ATTIRE; Smart Casual.” the hides began to crawl, the meat, both raw & roasted, bellowed out on the spits, and we heard … “Multiple serving stations feature mountains of pastas, brats & beer, omelets made-to-order, the Tutti Fruti Salad Station, monster sandwiches like the Kummelweck with roast beef piled high, sushi creations, meat-carving with all your favorite roasts, steaks & linked meats, with tons of tantalizing desserts & frothy cappuccinos” we doze & dream on the ember-warm decks then knives will part us too, blubber quivering quivering, not on a stick rack in the smoky autumn light, but patching excesses, bypass need & hunger, drugs to unclog the beeswax
& shit from our blood & pink baby-bird mouths, the deep orange salmon-like flesh & crablegs long as a child’s arm, roe as a garnish, spooned away as garbage … “In cantilevered whirlpools suspended beyond the ship find the blue warm & bubbly waters that are calling your name.”
Payment His chest is bare beneath the glint of morning light. Enshrouded by the cool breeze of September are his bronze shoulders And readied hands. Playing in his mind: A father’s refrain I will pay you. How has he, the half-naked son, Come to stand before an inert conglomeration Of river rocks? Should he not be - at this moment - sitting At a sterile desk erected in an office stories high Carrying out workplace assignments at his superior’s behest? Though were he, the son, to roost in a graying cubical Adjacent a window’s view of fuchsia skies and still waters, Would he not dabble - anyway - in prose? The storm winds had come a year ago, Had rallied with rain to topple easily An aging fence of cracked redwood. And this morning’s scene proves that the way is barred, That the rocks have buried themselves in rough soil, Acting as dutiful obstructions to a post-hole’s creation. For how many hours will the son see to the task As he tears at the earth so that he might ever slowly Hurl bundles of compounded minerals into a teetering wheelbarrow? He will pay me, thinks the son now moving, Just enough (perhaps) For tomorrow’s pleasant dinner with a friend.
TYLER MEREDITH
New is Better
SAGE ROBBINS
It's so easy at the beginning. So easy to imagine him Making funny faces in his Facebook photos with our future baby in his lap. So easy to imagine how everything will be perfect. Before knowing a person very well, Pretending they don't have any major flaws is simple. Whatever mistakes they make are silly and cute. I wish things could stay like that. Like at the beginning. Like when you pick up a snow globe and shake it up and everything is exciting and fun and beautiful. Before the cheap, white flecks of plastic settle. Before things grow quiet and dull. Like how birds greet the morning as if it's the first time they've seen light. This is how new love feels to me. I want to bottle it. I want to shove the person away before they grow stale or apalling. Just let me live in this dream, inside this forever swirling blizzard, Among the joyous, fiesty chirps. Before I stop making excuses for the inconsistencies. Before I stop ignoring the hurt. I'd rather tiptoe through the space before, Make it last, To creep around, avoiding awakening the beast. Instead just to bask in the enchantment of a new lover's face, And relish that naive window of peace. Eat it all before it spoils, Before the beginning stench of rot. Before the water even gets boiling, It's safest to empty the pot.
The insanity born / in the hurridness of everything Because we / view the world through / a window with / 5 by 10 panes glazed in ripples / chapter / thirty- / seven full of breaking & mending / —the irony already there / waiting to pounce— / & haunting voices of / the past / that can be heard through the walls: John Lennon, live in a building, where a movie about Satan coming to Earth was filmed, by a director, whose wife, and unborn child were murdered, because of a song that John Lennon wrote. My nervous glances / Healter / Skelter back at / the blade of danger / vertigo / of nostalgia for / squeaking cassette tapes & / 50s B-movies & Soviet ICBMs // An analog dream in a digital era / like a thousand / Uboats sailing due west / a convoy / of big rigs bearing fire water / : one hundred & ten proof // Where neon signs are out & LCD billboards are in // A world where / we can’t think for following / because someone else is / doing all / the thinking for us // The tightrope we tread unbalanced //
HENRY 7. RENEAU, JR.
Crecer (To Grow) Pity the boys who have hands like their fathers how can they know the power in their squeeze when their mothers have learned to scream in silence and their sisters are taught to cry with dry eyes how can they know the power in their fists when they are taught to eat punches with their breakfast how can they know the damage they will cause to others when they are taught to ignore the whirlwinds in their chests all for the sake of being men
JORGE QUINTANA
Untitled
Gene Avery
The Looking Water There’s a river we returned to each year
that spilled salsa music. From its waterfall, we caught a tumbler of liquid we brought to our lips, longing on our faces.
You spread a blanket on the ground.
I curled into your crescent shaped warmth.
The water looked on as only water does.
Restless it skipped over rock while you whispered: When your legs go watery
you can become anything.
Weren’t we gods that night? Do you remember?
DIANNA HENNING
CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES Max West is a creative writer, musician, and graduate of UC Davis, who has published articles, a book entitled Fourteen Months and Two Weeks Downtown: A Fictional Documentary with Names Changed to Protect the Guilty, many poems and several chapbooks of poetry, including Professions, Pocket Poems Vol. 1, and Semi-Serious Multi-Faceted Flowering Wheel Poem. He resides in Sacramento, California. More words availalbe at: http://flasheslightning.blogspot.com Sue Daly’s poetry has been published in Peeking Cat Poetry, Song of the San Joaquin, Poetry Now, Medusa’s Kitchen, and Brevities. She facilitates a writing group at Wellspring Women’s Center in Sacramento, CA. Sue has an interest in empowering women to find their unique voices through writing and sharing their writing with others. Buddy Lamorey is a writer and musician who majored in economics at csus. One of his great pleasures in life is trying to find ways these three fields do and do not overlap. He has worked at KVIE public television for two and a half years and is now getting ready to move up to Oregon. April C. La Torre has spent much of her recent time focusing on physical endeavors, but she is reaching back at her writer roots. She trusts that her time away adventuring will provide fresh perspective on her creative endeavors. Touting a BA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College in Oakland, CA, Ms. La Torre has been published in a few small East Bay publications, such as The Walrus and The Womanist. AeishaJ is a Sacramento poet, writer, creator, activist, mother, grandmother, friend. An Aquarius who seeks truth, loves RJ, granddaughters Destiny, Desiree, Deijah; embraces freedom fighters, Odetta, Toni, Nina, Lady Day, 'Retha, Alice. She loves the color purple, vanilla ice cream, rainy nights, autumn leaves, hummingbirds and solstice. She also adores her two cats Sista' Woman and Menty. Aeisha praises God everyday.
Randy White is a local poet and publisher (Blue Oak Press). He has had two books of poetry published, Motherlode / La Veta Madre (1977) and Blood Transparencies (2016) and has contributed to numerous anthologies and magazines. M/V Cattle of the Sun is from his next collection. Tyler Meredith earned his M.A. degree in Creative Writing while enrolled at California State University, Sacramento. He is the recipient of the 2016 Bazzanella Literary Award for Creative Non Fiction at the Graduate Level. His short fiction has been published in Voices: A Sac State Anthology and Calaveras Station Literary Journal. His wok deals - at times - with the theme of overcoming physical challenges. He takes photographs of the images that find him. Sage Robbins Born and raised in the Sacramento Valley, Sage Robbins first read her original poetry in public at the age of seventeen. Sage writes about a variety of topics, including social justice issues, relationship dynamics, everyday moments of magic, societal standards, her own memories, and the exploration of emotions often ignored. henry 7. reneau, jr. writes words in fire to wake the world ablaze: free verse that breaks a rule every day, illuminated by his affinity for disobedience, a phoenix-red & gold immolation that blazes from his heart, like a chambered bullet exploding through cause to implement effect. He is the author of the poetry collection, freedomland blues (Transcendent Zero Press, 2014) and the e-chapbook, physiography of the fittest (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014). Additionally, he has self-published a
chapbook entitled 13hirteen Levels of Resistance, and is currently working on a book of connected short stories. His work was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by LAROLA
Jorge Quintana is a Xicano poet from Sacramento studying English and Ethnic Studies at Sacramento State University. His work revolves around the deconstruction of his masculinity, his activism, and his undying thirst for romance.
Gene Avery has published nine novels, including 2-Story Pad and RED-HEAD WOMAN. His performance poetry includes NEBulous Stucco Thang and Screaming Pygmy Orchestra. He’s performed with a number of bands; as saxophonist with the Dutch Falconi Orchestra, he was a major contributor, co-writing many of the band’s signature tunes. He won a Sammies award for Jazz Player of the Year, 1996. Dianna Henning holds an MFA in Writing ’89 from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Published in, in part: Naugatuck River Review, Lullwater Review, The Red Rock Review, The Kentucky Review, The Main Street Rag, California Quarterly, Poetry International, Fugue, Clackamas Literary Review, South Dakota Review, Hawai’i Pacific Review and The Seattle Review. Finalist in Aesthetica’s Creative Writing Award in the UK. Henning has taught poetry for several years through California Poets in the Schools. She received several CAC grants and through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program which gave her the opportunity to teach poetry at Folsom Prison as well as at other CA prisons. Nominated by Blue Fifth Review Dec. 2015 for a Pushcart. Henning’s third poetry book Cathedral of the Hand published 2016 by Finishing Line Press.