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Burning Leaves
by Leo Luke Marcello
Father,
in an instant
the odor of burning leaves
brings you back to me,
standing by the metal cans
where you stirred up smoke
from the cinder-hot
pecan-leaf inferno
singeing some back-hidden
pleasure center of our brains
by sending pungent arrows
of pulsing fire-clouds
up through breath
a cold winter day years ago,
when you were alive and
burning leaves out back
was legal.
From Nothing Grows in One Place Forever: Poems of a
Sicilian American by Leo Luke Marcello. Copyright © 1998 by Time
Being Books. Reprinted courtesy of Time Being Press.
The Old Man in the Garden
by Joseph Meredith
All of summer has turned brittle overnight:
the weightless shell of the wasp
I found this morning in a web;
the shucked husk of the mantis, riding light
as a shadow in the dry grass
that leans against the bricks, beyond hope or prayer;
and almost overnight, my father’s fragile bones.
The yellow marigolds, robust yesterday —
so many small suns suspended in the green —
wilt and blacken, letting themselves down
like the heads of old men drooping off to sleep.
A hundred thousand maple wings spin
like gyros in the wind.
And the dogwood drips its scarlet berries on the ground
where light is sifted to the thinness of a scythe —
the green gloss of its leaves
spotted purple, spotted brown,
as though a dying man, thin fingers colder than ice,
had touched them in the night,
a touch as gentle as a father’s, saddening and chill.
Each leaf will bear the fingerprints
and bleed to crimson in a week.
The sun ticks farther south each day,
and in a month, the white.
But the dogwood anchors memory:
the earth will lean to more congenial light.
What’s weightless will have weight again —
a hundred thousand maples lodge beneath the snow,
and in the head of every marigold, father,
two hundred sons.
From Hunter’s Moon: Poems from Boyhood to Manhood
by Joseph Meredith. Copyright © 1993 by Time Being Books. Reprinted
courtesy of Time Being Press.
Medical Records
by Charles Muñoz
One night there was a flood
in the hospital basement
where everybody's records were stowed.
Water lifted those records
off the lowest shelf, floated them upward.
Water took the folders, flopped
them open, mixed the papers.
Ink swirled in the water, diluting
names, dates, diseases and disorders,
smudging outcomes; all in darkness
in the basement of the hospital.
Water snickered back to the sewer,
and the records lay scattered
on the puddled floor.
Under the one unshaded bulb
three clerks chatted,
their shoes damp, their voices
echoing from the cinderblock walls,
judging those records, peeling
papers apart, passing wet papers back and forth:
interpreting smudged ink.
They could hear water trickling, hear scurry-foot
of rats in the passage, mumble of the generator,
and they could hear the sigh
of a patient far upstairs, a sigh brought
down to them by a channel in the dark wall.
From Fragments of a Myth: Modern Poems on Ancient
Themes by Charles Muñoz. Copyright © 2001 by Time Being Books.
Reprinted courtesy of Time Being Press.
The Cynic
By Victor Morrow
I rant and rage against the
civilized garbage they package so
politically correct for me to consume.
Insulting my intellect with visions of
My primitive self, a savage
bereft of any conscious damage.
A drone of complacency in the air,
passing me a sampler of envy
at every turn to tempt me away
from the path of righteousness,
to taint me with the mark of spoils
and impart me with the ordinaire.
So pervasive and decadent that
logic can’t enter, priests and
ministers so caught up in the same
that they can’t see their own escape,
much less that of their followers.
For them, there is no culpable self.
Nations turn from what made them great,
to throw out the old and embrace the new,
to vegetate, to negate, to impregnate,
to compensate for the embarrassment of
obsolescence and age as if there was
some law against the tried and true.
No demand, no sales. They would have
to find another way to scare the money
out of my pockets with a new honey
selling her sexy charms to bald men
and frumpy women looking for life.
There’s always a hook to reel us in.
Only now have I turned a corner and
no longer want to pollute the planet.
I scold myself for being vain and for
mindlessly wasting limited resources.
But the authors of destruction are still
sending me promises of immortality.
Copyright © 2008 Victor Morrow
Mahmoud Darwish:
Division Without a Name
By Victor Morrow
I didn’t know you had a name, if you did,
I probably wouldn’t be able to pronounce it.
They say, and again, I don’t know who they
are, maybe some great journalists or critics
making a name off your name---you know
how it is. They say you were a great poet for
some cause or another, and that your people
suffered greatly and you are the voice of
that suffering, and that your life will lead the
way toward peace in the middle-east. I don’t
see how that can be now that you are dead.
It’s not like you scarified your life on a cross
to redeem the souls of the suffering. Here’s
the problem, when I see the middle-east, I
don’t see division, I hear that it is divided,
but I don’t see it with my eyes and don’t
feel it with my heart. Just like I don’t see the
suffering in Columbia and Ecuador, I don’t
see how one country can cause another to
suffer the inhumanity of which you speak.
It’s hard to believe that you are not brothers
and share some common traits of decency
and respect for one another. The bodies
that strewn the streets of the bombers do
not convince me that you are divided. The
shock of atrocities as seen on the evening news
do not prove anything. If the Twin Towers
cannot turn me away to give up my principles
of humanity, can your embellishers and
deceivers do as much. Is their proof really
in their bloodletting shock and horror.
They say you are great---so I will look for
the forgiveness, unity, and peace.
Copyright © 2008 Victor
Morrow
The Man From Kitsilano
by Victor Morrow A
Griffin for Blaser with his pure white hair
flowing from the shores of English Bay and Kits.
There, Robin of The Holy Forest conferring with
Pinocchio, there to, David to offer kindness and
love to the "hippest guy in the room."
SFU and UC Berkeley publishing his adoring life
work: The Fire, The Holy Forest. He cares not what
others think-- beyond his betrayal by the church,
critics can't kill, and he will not give up his
beliefs for anyone. His qualities long fixed in
love, openness, and a point of view tempered
by the sensual and philosophical. Always a sage
to those seeking honest and real advice.
Idaho roots in a ghost town named Blaser---
a Mormon grandfather living in railroad villages.
Not for him, he was called to chase the finer arts
in Berkeley and San Francisco, where Arendt, North,
Duncan, Spicer, and Olson taught him the meaning
of life to pass on to young hearts and minds
in ivory towers, to me, to you.
Emerald, moonstone, and silver worn as he listens
to stories told by craftsmen tinkerers for the
heavens, each there to remind him of a beauty
he is obliged to share. Stories passing in his
mind of a Roman saint from Assisi and another
named St. Augustine---they seem to be guiding
his life in ways he appreciates but does not
always understand.
Love is the center of a spiraling universe,
round and round---spinning off spirits of love.
Devine, hidden forces, so pure they reject
human description, intervention, but somehow
bless those that seek. Little bits and pieces
of his soul, your soul, my soul---his life
promised to the soil on his passing as a
peaceful memory to those he touched,
and who touched him.
Copyright © 2008 Victor Morrow
Expectations
by Gardner McFall
When we turned from the cement drive
to the gravel road, I might have expected
anything from my brother, just six,
learning to ride a two-wheeler for the first time.
Older by five years, I ran beside him
like a bedrail to keep him from falling,
while Mother stood on the front stoop,
hands visor-fashion over her eyes.
She looked like a cheerleader fixed on the play.
My father appeared at the road’s end,
an imaginary finish line we wavered toward
in a shaky, ongoing S.
Time seemed endless, the moment
between knowing and not knowing whether
he would ride on straight without me,
whether he would spill to the other side
or into my arms. And how could I keep
the world from spinning as the two wheels
turned and kept turning over the stones and dust?
Whatever it was I tripped on, I went down
knee, shoulder, cheek to a quick, clean fracture
of the wrist no one could foresee or accept.
And so I went to bed in the still-light
evening, assured I would be well,
torn between assurance and the small pain
that outgrew my limbs by morning.
Now, it seems slapstick that an older sister
stumbles beside her brother,
but the ground for human error
is immense, and I’ve since learned
people will tell you
your arm’s not broken, not because
they don’t want to drive you to the dispensary,
not even because they don’t believe
the pain you feel, but, put simply,
it’s not supposed to happen like that.
From The Pilot’s Daughter by Gardner McFall.
Copyright © 1996 by Time Being Books. Reprinted courtesy of Time Being
Press.
From One Octogenarian to
Another
by Ben Milder
Once more, you’re up to your old tricks,
Pretending that you’re eighty-six.
But friends of yours, from your old school,
Look at you, and, as a rule,
Silently, they foam and rage,
Because you look one-half their age.
While those friends seem to go on shrinking,
You’re still at it, learning, thinking,
Still as busy as can be,
With your laptop on you knee
And giving older folks a lift,
With your still youthful keyboard gift.
When I look at your physique,
Primed by workouts thrice a week,
To me, it is exhilarating
To see the men folks salivating.
But you were long since spoken for,
By you know who, and what is more,
Since you’re eighty-six and don’t deny it,
Those friends of yours would like to try it.
They say, “In a frenzy we are vergin’.
Tell us your secret. Who’s your surgeon?”
Just say to them, “Don’t be frenetic.
It’s not denial. It’s genetic.”
From What’s So Funny About the Golden Years by Ben
Milder. Copyright © 2008 by Time Being Books. Reprinted courtesy of Time
Being Press.
The Dumb Show
by Sabrina Orah Mark
Because the gods believe they ought, like buried corsets,
to make the best of a bad bargain, they have begun to
show their flesh a little;
their black hair expanding into heaven knows what...the
muddy scratch of stick figures in the dark, the ones who
have begun to delicately call themselves Madeleine rub
their sleepy eye from behind that blue monocle, and the
others with a futurist thirst for tim, crimson curtain
lowering on the last act, I assure you: there was no
beginning,
as in: before he even made his entrance...The whole place
was in an uproar. And after? And before? I went back
behind the curtain and returned in a woman's blouse
battle-weary...The men above me were shouting. The
women above were shouting. The electric lights went
out as arranged. I felt on the ground for the black wig,
though it was not clear whose was whose. I caressed the
bone-hard surface of a stranger's chest until he pulled
me to his lap and brought my fingers to his mouth.
From The Babies by Sabrina Orah Mark. Copyright ©
2004 by Sabrina Orah Mark. Reprinted courtesy of Saturnalia Books.
Amen
by Sabrina Orah Mark
Whether or not it was the trumpeter, or the brass, or
the brass against a certain naked foot. Whether or not
you are what's left to be solved of the drowned, I rented
a room beside the Butcher's Lake. Mostly sadness.
They'd come around at night and ask me questions.
From far off, we could hear bathtubs or radios or
chandeliers being thrown out of windows. "Heads or
tails," they'd ask. "As a friend, "I'd say, "I recommend the
head." They never asked me if I knew you although I
wish they had. It was a mild winter to be deserted and
the black sailboats seemed tired and a little old. I kept
sparrows loose in the kitchen, which aroused their
curiosity as they fingered my scars. One day, they
kneeled inside me and called me a Jew. At first I rejected
their offer, but they were right and promised me a lady's
hat. I did not fear them until I wanted to be afraid.
The lake was guarded and the road to town was closed.
From The Babies by Sabrina Orah Mark. Copyright ©
2004 by Sabrina Orah Mark. Reprinted courtesy of Saturnalia Books.
Commitment
by Joseph Millar
Parked by this dirt road with both doors open
and a stream running under the brambles and stalks
I lean against the fender, trying to explain how it is
I've given away so many pieces of this body
without meaning to, even its shadow riddled with dust
floating fitfully down in the air:
children and houses, age catching up,
unraveling this coat I keep trying to mend
with exercise and low-fat food,
remedies for a long middle age.
You look at me without speaking and away
down the valley, offering all of it, daring me
to reach from my fraying skin like the branches
of the madrone, into what's left of the daylight.
It could be the night coming down the long hills
will swallow us both, that the willows around us
are singing, having untied their gold hair,
and we can lie here under their branches
and never go back.
And it could be that some things can't
be explained, but I can't stop talking,
stammering about children and life insurance,
even when a barn owl rises from the cottonwoods
and drifts out over the roadway.
I keep looking for a path winding off
through these woods, as the stream wanders past,
invisible, and you squat to pee
into the bent grass
without holding on to anything.
From Millar's Book, Overtime, (Eastern Washington University Press). Copyright © 2001 by
Joseph Millar. Reprinted courtesy of Joseph Millar.
The Nevermore Land
by Karen Meadows
Silence overwhelming, senses aware
Waiting for the darkness to settle around me
Like a cloak, enveloping me
I patiently wait
To drift into the nevermore land
Furtive glances to the outer perimeters
Are they coming, are they hiding?
Behind me, beside me
Waiting for me
To drift into the nevermore land
Grasping onto the sheltering place
Searching for the saving grace,
Hanging on by tooth and nail,
So afraid
To drift into the nevermore land
Panic engulfs me, my feet are sliding
I tighten my grip on grace
Desperation pulls at me
Trying to drag me away
To drift into the nevermore land
They come from the shadows,
Swirling around me with glee
Teeth gnashing, claws gripping
Cackling in my ears, leaving me
To drift into the nevermore land
I sink into the desperation
Violated, and abandoned
Pain overwhelming, total isolation
Torn and bleeding, left alone
To drift into the nevermore land
Far away I see the light,
Dim but steady, almost gone
I gather my strength
Onward, trying not
To drift into the nevermore land
I feel them still surrounding me
I push them aside, pushing on
I feel the shredding of my flesh
As they try to pull me back
To drift into the nevermore land
Screaming in my agony
My frustration mounting
The light grows brighter
Still small, but captivating me
Leading me from the nevermore land
The path in view, the claws get sharper
Trying to hold me in the shadows
As they pierce my skin I laugh
My excitement rising,
With hope to leave the nevermore land
Closer, closer, I am getting
Reaching outward, reaching upward
Grasping grace, with an open heart
Casting aside the demons,
To drift into the nevermore land
My wounds are cleansed
Amazement overwhelms me
I see my reflection,
Whole and new
Saved from the nevermore land
I look out into the darkness
Safe and secure, peaceful
Content in the grace
That keeps me safe and warm
Out of the nevermore land
Copyright © 2008 Karen Meadows
He Walks With Us
by Michele Lee Moyer
GOD
Walks along our side
Keeping us close
To him
Close by
When you need
Him to be
He will always
Be your friend
When You need
GOD
Just call out
To him
He will be
There because
He Walks With Us
And will always
Be there for you
Copyright © 2008 Michele Lee Moyer
Rain:
Again
by Nikarika Mishra
It's ten twenty and still there is noise inside the house,
A television blaring the emphatic assertions of some megalomaniac,
The discomfort that started in the breast early morning is steadily
crawling forward like a smart caterpillar without the knowledge of where
to go,
At this time the rain has come with its essential music Yet it sounds
like the earth
crying in dreadful helplessness Or it is somebody inside,
broken and shattered beyond redemption squirming in pain, with no hope
of relief.
Has this rain ensued a process
That will leave the soul maimed for eternity, pushing the being into
deep recesses of insanity.
Or a Buddha will be born
to write a new story of salvation in a new way!
How softly the rain drops are touching the earth, the leaves and
everything,
Is not there a chance of redemption really?
To go back to the love-tinged world of innocent faces, the blue sky and
the grass underneath!
to hover among the bee-buzzing crowd of impatient minds which will give
a sound reason to live.
Why time has stopped whereas no one had wanted it to!
The uneasiness signals of a death and a new birth may be,
A birth closer to the ancient truths of the universe,
A birth that will mark a more difficult journey ahead.
Copyright © 2008 Niharika Mishra
A Voice From The Ghetto
by Daniel Jay Mc Shane
I sneak a peek through the bullet hole in my dirty kitchen's window,
steel bars prevent escape.
I gaze down upon piles of worthless junk thoughtlessly discarded on the
asphalt lot below,
where children run and play.
Momma drinks from a fingerprinted glass surrounded by the colored
bottles from yesterday's celebration.
I quietly walk to the livingroom,
where a suffering Jesus weeps silently upon the silver flowered
wallpapered wall,
I swear sometimes he talks to me in a whisper, telling me,
"Don't despair."
Arguing voices cursing the misfortunes of a drug deal gone bad.
Break! the silence outside my livingroom's door.
Dungeon gray....
heavy as steel....
countless locks....
A piercing scream echoes,
goes ignored,
then fades.
I sit alone upon our dusty brown couch as Momma rambles on senselessly
in the other room,
an alcoholic's tune.
I stare once again to the suffering Jesus hanging hopelessly upon the
wall,
as the night draws near and the light as dim as my dreams,
I whisper a tearful prayer for hope,
within this ghetto's gloom......
Copyright © 2009 Daniel Jay Mc Shane
It Happened One Night
by Daniel Jay Mc Shane
Rain poured upon my window,
the night Marie died,
but the moon shone bright upon all other windows.
As the night grew late.
I was awakened, by the heavenly sound of an angel
singing a most beautiful tune,
of Marie.
While she sang, the rain began to subside.
I knew I had to view this heavenly creature outside,
for her song and perfect playing filled my heart with so
much comforting grace.
I glanced outside as the remaining raindrops slithered
down my window like tiny snakes.
I saw the heavenly angel dressed in brilliant white,
with long golden hair illuminating the darkness of the
night,
with a small harp of silver and blue gently cradled within
her tender hands,
and for a brief moment, I saw Marie standing there,
audience to this most perfect being.
She looked to me in a moment's light,
smiling the brightest smile,
the one I've always known her to possess.
She waved good-bye and whispered to me a sweet
good-night,
as her spirit took flight like a meteor into the black night
sky.
I watched the streaking orange light disappear,
as a tear like a brilliant diamond rolling slowly down my
soft cheek
sparkled as it dropped to the dusty wood floor on which I
stood,
splashing in a sound no louder than a whisper.
I breathed an empty painful sigh,
staring into the dark eternal sky
and with the pure hope that she would hear
I spoke this sad reply.....
"Good night! My sweet Marie.....
My dear mother.....
Good night......"
Copyright © 2009 Daniel Jay Mc Shane
One
by Jade Murphy
One
One Women
One Man
One Child
One Birth
One Death,
She Only had One of Very Few Many;
One Feeling
One Touch
One Smell
One Vision
One Memory,
Only One True Source of Happiness and Joy;
I Shall Believe in One Understandable Reason to Share with our
Unbelievable Shattered Hearts,
Truth;
The One
The Only one,
True Life Moment,
Rayna ElAnn Experienced the One Amazing Moment that Changed our Lives.
For Eternity in Itself Shall Come,
Fate;
One
Only One,
Only one Fateful Day on that
Silent,
Shivering,
Mindless,
December Morning;
One.
She Only had One of Very Few Many,
One Fateful day,
One.
In Loving Memory of Our Little Girl
Rayna ElAnn Murphy
July 31ST, 2008 -- December 2ND, 2008
We Shall Never Let Go Little Girl
Love Mommy.
Copyright © 2009 Jade Murphy
The Muse’s Foil
by Anne Mikusinski
Sometimes I bite
Drawing blood
A not so gentle nudge
As a reminder that I
Live
In a way that only
He can understand
Giving an acknowledgement
To
This undefined
And quiet
Partnership
Inanimate yet amorous
Creating
A maelstrom
Of art and noise
As we move together
He pushes me away
Then raises me up
As sacrifice and tribute
An offering for the pulsing crowd
Then draws me back
To hold me close
Continuing our private conversation
Our mutual ownership
And occasional bliss.
Copyright © 2018 with permission from Anne Mikusinski
Last Summer/This Summer
by Anne Mikusinski
Some people like to hear about
What I call the
Evolution
Of this thing
(Whatever it is)
But I prefer to
Think about
What it is
Now
And what it
Could grow into
With care and time
And patience.
At the moment though
I am content
To appreciate
How it keeps me
Hopeful
For whatever happens
Next.
Copyright © 2018 with permission from Anne Mikusinski
Seen And Not Seen
by Anne Mikusinski
Okay.
I stole this title
From an old tune
That isn't sung but spoken
Because
It reminded me
Of how I
Watched you that night
In performance
And noticed
How what you
Were creating
Affected everything
And how I went home
And have been writing
About nothing since
But
How you moved
Caught up in something
Better captured in a picture
Than in thoughts.
But as words are all I have
I'll just say I still dream about
Untamed hair
Obscuring all but the motion of your
Fingers
On the strings
And how my breath stopped
In that moment
And still does.
Copyright © 2018 with permission from Anne Mikusinski
Night Music
by Anne Mikusinski
Tonight's soundtrack
Includes
The soft whirring
Of rotating blades
Above my head
As they lull my thoughts to
Sleep
And usher in
Tonights cast
Of worries and dead author's quotes,
And other things unspoken
Before midnight
Their presence brings an uneasy
Familiarity
To the room
And a longing for better
Company
At this hour
A wish for companionship
And soft words
Before sleep.
Copyright © 2018 with permission from Anne Mikusinski
Passing through the Metal Mirror for Parmigianino’s
Prime Figure, Self-Portrait
by Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah
What time it is, I do not know, except that a yacht is passing by
and my long neck is animated, appearing on the sideboard before the
groups in high glee, laughter and conversation for another mind of
converting base metal to gold. I am obsessed with the sea. I am
preoccupied with counterfeiting, I perverse your nature behind my
shadow, I bury my nakedness with your cypress standing upright on the
rock. I go. I find all the men in the dining room at supper, I see you
see standing, threatening myself with somebody’s death. I leave my
window that faces the sea alone. I sign for the gist that closes a
passage between us, I return to myself in the body that divides the
space, everything in the entrance remains uncertainty. I turn a paper
into garbled announcement of gammon with your garlic taste, I number the
bars in this window in your sleeping eyes. I name them, you are the only
debonair chap with large sum of money debited from your account. Fairy
people are afraid to go out night for a lovers' party in the inns. You
decipher the streets with rainstorms and hold non-conformists in
confinement for the growth of darkness debased by decomposition, we are
conferred in the condominium during writing workshop to build concussion
that has been the compunction, I wait in this night, I place my
difficulties in concealment and this is my heart at the bar table, where
I was arrested. Now that this electric lamp flickers and I imagine the
faces at the counter waiting for their turn, I measure the time again.
But when I wash a white cloth respectfully, I screw the convex lens on
them. I remain silently with my head bending deeper into the dry valley
in my heart. At the end of this long rope is a true silence? The fat
immigrant boy has damaged his left eye at play. The grimy steel bridge
over the misunderstanding of spelling his name is traffic gridlock.
The whole house crosses it and the seeds of Uncle Tom's desire are
rather blossoming. Here some are daydreams, I think of my flight
in the green clouds, where your grandfather is still drinking his beer,
the whole room in a book is illuminated, I plough the future in the mud
sky
with this poor boy's lost eye I have borrowed in this cell, still
waiting to see myself.
by Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah (with permission July 2019).
Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah is the author of the new hybrid
works, The Sun of a Solid Torus, Conductor 5, Genus for L Loci and
Handlebody. His individual poems are widely published and recently
appearing in Rigorous, Beautiful Cadaver Project Pittsburgh, The Meadow,
Juked, North Dakota Quarterly, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Sandy River
Review, Strata Magazine, Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, etc. He is
algebraist and artist and lives in the southern part of Ghana, Spain,
and Turtle Mountains, North Dakota.
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