modernpoetryreview

Pluviophilia
My corpse has awoken from its crusade
in the other world of myth and dream,
where I failed to subject gods and beings
to whatever tenuous totalidoxy

I thought I was seeking. To verify
You exist. I suppose this is all for the best.
Infallible ideas tend to lead to holy wars,
which would end poorly, me having no army.

I imagine I wouldn’t like it either
if You were so busy developing
more comprehensive Michaelologies
you withheld this delicate rain –

The world I journeyed toward returns,
the earth a cradle made of water.
Delight of the souleye the only knowledge.
If You aren’t present, neither is the cosmos.

Harbor Mandala

.                                             i have come to you harbor
.                                             this morning after a nightmare
.                                             has absconded only its anxious
.                                            wake still within me

beyond the shoreside minnows                       demanding I apprehend
below the gulls perched on buoys                   an amorphous dream
the small boat trolling depthward                   subject it to reason
to beg for what it cannot see                          force it to signify something

.                                             your surface a canvas
.                                             where the cloud muted sun
.                                             paints abstract patterns
.                                             of deep blues shaded with greys

whatever i thought i was                                 i could have come empty
going to see was not this                                 handed silently greeted
wind brushing across                                      an old friend opened
your skin creating visions                                my eyes invited you into my soul

.                                             ducks float napping silently
.                                             in the oak shade i wander by
.                                             my sandals quacking with
.                                             each step on my way home

Morning
The tiny harbor ripples            did not begin               when I happened

upon them.  The breeze           breezing them towards            me does not symbolize

any Spirit uniting        us.  Ducks cluster,       scatter, squawking      like ducks.  This is not

a performance                                     for my eyes; I’m a human                   being, taken

on a stroll by               his soul through his                 soul as each of these

souls lives its image                 solely for this tethered            pleasure: being.  I’ve finished

losing the world          I thought I controlled,                        and the tiny flecks

of light on wavelets,               where dawn and                     haven face one another,

remind me you speak              in visions, promising               prayers harmonize deeper

than soliloquies, even                          as the water-                sparks’ patternless dancing

duets its endpoints,                 lineless pictograms, strange                 succorous listening

to a language sung      in figures, one             I no longer have                      to master.

About the Poet
Michael Collins’ poems have received Pushcart Prize nominations and appeared in more than 40 journals and magazines, including Grist, Kenning Journal, Pank, and Smartish Pace. His first chapbook, How to Sing when People Cut off your Head and Leave it Floating in the Water, won the Exact Change Press Chapbook Contest in 2014. A full-length collection, Psalmandala, was published later that year. Another chapbook, Harbor Mandala, is forthcoming in July of 2015. Visit http://www.notthatmichaelcollins.com/ for more

This Isn’t Just To Say
That I have envied Dr. Williams
His indulgent wife
Who tolerates his breakfast thefts
For the sake of art.
But a suspicion creeps in
On little cat feet
That those extra trips to the grocery
And wiping the rain
From the glazed, red wheelbarrow
Make her weary
When the lights go out,
Which might explain
Why the happy genius
Who couldn’t get his own plums,
No matter how sweet and cold,
Spends evenings dancing
By himself.

About the Poet
Mitch Earleywine was born in California, grew up in Missouri, and currently teaches at the University at Albany, State University of New York. His poetry has appeared in Columbia Review and his non-fiction has been published by Oxford University, Springer, and Hogrefe.

Prosthetic
Overhead, the night geese search
the frozen surface

.              In lotus pose, marble Buddha,
.              left hand resting palm up in his lap,

below. A woman struggles
to remind herself

.              his right hand reaches downward,
.              fingers chipped off by vandals.

it could be
so much worse.

.              He sits intending
.              to touch the earth and call it to witness

Be mindful,
practice detachment,

.              in a winter garden overgrown with ivy.
.              As geese overhead continue

she struggles to remind herself—
unhooking her bra,

.              to seek, he can never
.              reach the ground.

she sets her new breast
on the nightstand.

Song of the Spores
Tabernacled deep within the forest, cloistered
in fern, I listen while two wrens
lob ontological proofs across the no-man’s land.

Loam is Lord

A half-hearted drizzle in half-light plays
patty-cake with maple leaves in rhythms
encrypting the oracle of chlorophyll.

Loam is Lord

The pond proclaims an epiphany—baby
wood ducks—no one explains why the wind riles
its perfect surface, rekindling our addiction to mirrors.

Loam is Lord

The trail serpentines through old growth fir, and the State
plantation, trunks ribbon-tied with empirical questions,
tagged graffiti orange, like boxcars.

Loam is Lord

I dare not speak the Latin name of the poseur,
the red columbine, pretending—“hey, look at me,
I hang like a Tang dynasty lamp.”

Loam is Lord

Yea, though I find no taste to snowmelt filtered
through volcanic rock, I still wonder who
first tickled the spores on the private underside of a fern.

Loam is Lord

About the Poet
David Hargreaves is a poet/linguist living in Oregon. Most recently, he translated a collection of poems, “The Blossoms of Sixty-Four Sunsets,” by Nepal Bhasa poet Durga Lal Shrestha, which was published in Kathmandu in the fall of 2014.

Pacha*
We fell to the earth
in a reckless body of white fire
exploding in the dark
against the formless pale sediment.

We cut a bowl in its rock
loosing the water from its shut eyes,
carving rivers out of the land
and flooding the world with sound

Years later, we returned to the water to drink;
our fingers traced the tattooed rock, the swirling rainbow of ancient soil,
but we could not recognize the imprint of our body

Because we had become lost in the motion,
in the ceaseless beginning of everything everywhere:
perplexed, we called it time and left.

*In the Quechua language, the word “pacha” means both land and time.

About the Poet
Nick Hilbourn lives and works near Philadelphia.  He writes columns and articles for Defenestration, Pointsincase.com and headstuff.org.  He blogs at largethingslargerthings.tumblr.com.

Time Garden: A Sestina
With careful rake he manicures the sand
And sets the rocks just right within his work
And pine tree’s molded branches in the type
Of stage, almost a watercolor set
In shades of yellow, gray, and green which meet
In fragile scene that could be caught in time.
We stop and look, slow down and take our time
Amazed at artful nature made of only sand
Which laps on trees and rocks where sidewalks meet.
Such beauty, grace and spirit are the work
Of art expressed in simple strokes, the type
Against the silence of the ages set.
The promised quiet beauty now is set
The day is slowly running out of time
And garden as a work of art is type
Of symmetry that could be made of sand,
A simple frozen image of the work
Where light and stone and swirling sand now meet.
Now as the light is failing spirits meet
And hover on nature’s stage now set,
A simple statement that for now will work
And lift us out of body, out of time.
Eternity within the swirls of sand
With rocks and trees of just a single type.
No great award is given for this type
Nor any is expected. Now we meet
The frozen image of the swirls of sand
Within our spirits now so firmly set
As if the universe and all of time
Are pictured in this single simple work.
The artist was very skillful at his work
The garden is nearly perfect for its type
So fragile yet it will stand the test of time
Its purifying power we shall meet
It is more perfect than this attempt to set
Impressions of this art in lowly sand.

And so the work in earthly rock and sand
Is but a type of beauty that we set
Our time to savor the beauty that we meet.

About the Poet
Dr. Emory D. Jones is an English teacher who has taught in Cherokee Vocational High School in Cherokee, Alabama, for one year, Northeast Alabama State Junior College for three years, Snead State Junior College in Alabama for two years, and Northeast Mississippi Community College for thirty-five years.  He joined the Mississippi Poetry Society, Inc. in 1981 and has served as President of this society.  He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by this society in 2015.  He has over two hundred and thirty-five publishing credits.

Light Thinking
Think of light, that’s one move one
ought to be able to make,
for surely the thought

of light is light, a light thought,
say, of the lovely lift
of a blue balloon

slipping out of the grasp of a
small child’s hand,
the sudden puff

of a light breeze,
the loosely held string
slithering right on through,

nudged along by the thought
of winning a goldfish by
simply tossing a dime

out to a small glass plate, and
having it stick, why I
could certainly do that

and the goldfish will
be mine, a pleasing thought
to keep in mind, and thus

the balloon simply sailed off and away
into the blue, now gone, that blue
balloon, and the child

pondered his weighty loss,
until the goldfish, the dazzlingly
golden goldfish, came back to play.

A Jelly At The Pier

                                               For Barbara

1.
The drift of me so often hard to figure,
Me, a freely floating jellyfish,
Slopping around
As the current tends,
Permanently on vacation,
Luminous easy thing that I am.
I wonder why I sting on contact?

Hardly neighborly, but then
I sense that, I know that.

Settling down for me, maybe not an option.
Spurned and spurning, the natural me?

Yes, I am touchy, so don’t you touch me.

2.
I’ve been often asked this:
Why not simply shift to a let-down-all-defenses mode,
Open to experience,
A curious harmless companion?

Well, think about all that I don’t have:
No feet legs hands arms eyes, face,

None of it wired into
A unified and unifying
Control system,

I mean a viable me, a ready at hand self
To do as it wills and can, given its circumstances,

I could deal with being so, but not me as now, not me as a patsy.

3.
Do you think I like this free floating slavish
Rolling in and out water-bound life style?

You call this stylish, being swept into pilings?
Sharp mussels ripping me.
My jell, like your flesh, does rip.
Did you ever think of that?

Being pummeled by pilings!
It’s not much fun, pushed in, out, back, forth,
Helplessly adrift, then scorched by a rasping wharf.

An unintentional bumper into everything I’m not.
Listen, I’ve got big stress, my life is a mess.

4.
Would that I could shape up and have a say!
If I did, I’d scurry everything out of my way.
I’d hold real sway, I’d scuttle the kids, those brats
Who poke me with sticks, and giggle when I quiver,
Flip me like a pancake, but wary of my stingers.

5.
I oughta get in shape? I gotta get a shape.
I thought about doing push-ups,
But I’ve got no hands, how could I push?
And as for running, you see any feet?

Like I said, I’m poked by kids with sticks!
It makes me want to change, improve,
Makes me want to shape myself up,
To stand tall, erect, commanding, dangerous,

Able to defend myself, get my way, make use of
Newly formed fully functioning fists,
From Jelly to granite in one swift move,
Not cowering in my gooey field display
Of sloppy slurpiness, that would be over.

6.
Behold the prompting sweep of a rock hard left, a right,
Then a solid sock to the jaw, I’d lay them out flat,
Then let the tide wash those cads away while I stand firm.
Sure I’d stay around, be notable, not a washed-up has-been.
I’ll start right now on learning how to seed my jelly sag self
With legs feet toes hips a towering spine, everything.
That done, I’ll step out of the sea, I’ll stand tall,
They’ll all fall, and the loud crowd will quiet to a hush
As I bellow out of my newly freed mouth, my mouth
Finally rid of anus sharing- talk about a
Screwed up design! An automatic potty mouth!
And that was for openers!
That’s just part of what I’ve had to deal with,
And I have dealt with it! Moving on:
Into my now mostly clean mouth hole
I’d take in a breath and then
From that fine mouth I would shout out loud and clear:

This beach is mine!

7.
I’d be an astonishment,
Venders would gather around me ,
Offering up their trinkets,
Jewelry blankets t-shirts various ointments,
They’d freely give me most of it for nothing,
Asking only my protection in return.

I’d rule them, rule them all,
Beach beauties cooing at my many sides,
Celebrity volley ball tournaments held in my honor,
That would be so cool.

8.
But I might lift myself only to find myself
Still down, stranded by the tide,
A broken egg yolk,
Sand grit rough on my under belly,
New structures of limbs and laden spine,
Fallen back into formlessness,
Any efforts, any trials, quickly lost
To boat wakes,
Tide wash,
Moon shifts
Lifting me back to where I was, nowhere,
Alone, helpless but for my trailing tentacles.

But they do have their sharp stinging points.
Points? instruments of pain!
Even as I am, you better watch out.

9.
Beware, don’t you ever touch me.
And if you do,
Be ready to scream and jerk away.

And don’t you dare blame me,
Fault me for being what I am,
An unwilling formless left behind
Menacing lurk of a passive retributive violent
Attack mode innocent victim of the sea, but also

A bit of jelly fully formed beauteous flower too, so true,
But only if left isolate, statuesque stunningly
Elegant unworldly balanced design
By a god who knew beauty when he saw it,
And who said yes to me completely,
And in saying yes saw himself anew,

Basking in early light, a penetrative being,
Held beyond gloom or joy, saw and still
Sees an instantaneous wonder, wholly itself,
Forever unapproachable, so step back why don’t you,
Take a good look at me, I’m so far beyond you,
Really, what more could you ever possibly want to be, but me.

About the Poet
Ken McKeon is a retired teacher and active poet living in Berkeley. He has been writing verse for most of his life. published two books: Winter Man and Spring Equinox, studied with Thom Gunn and Josephine Miles at UC Berkeley, also served as Miss Miles’ T.A., and was a founding member of the Rhymer’s Club. He presently teach meditative inquiry at Berkeley’s Nyingma Institute.

Phonology of Shadows
A Shadow moved suddenly from its Place
in the corridor that led Away
to a Staircase that gave no Issue
onto any Human World—
the Shadow moved abruptly
as is their wont
when upset or distressed, when having
an urgent message to impart
only that, having forgotten our Tongue, and we
having never learnt theirs
the Words are lost, bygone,
surrounded by their own eddies
of Oblivion, and the form
without contours would
tell us, only its sudden
desperate gesture speaks
and we glance over, seeing nothing, and
after a careless scribbled note
the Shadow entombed in its
dead, half-remembered syllables
like the invented code of a secretive child
in which there are no copulas.

About the Poet
Ottilie Mulzet has been published in The Missing Slate, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Muse, Morphrog, and Sand Journal, among others, and will be forthcoming in the Beloit Poetry Journal.

There Dewy Driven Zero Medium Lacuna Fantasy
by Charles Bane Jr, DeMisty D. Bellinger, Alicia Hoffman, Tom Holmes, Allan Kaplan, John Lowther and Christina Murphy

Is no nothing as I sleep inside your soul.
Sticky neck, nuzzle closer, get stickier still
I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride.
Time, within the white shadows floating, like delicate smoke
and in the space between
between the patio and the oak, her grief bled into a field of red poppies.
Is there an artificial sweetener that won’t damage any internal organs?

Note: This is a different version of an exquisite corpse with no restrictions. Each poet contributed a word for the title and a line for the poem. Everything will be organized according to whoever responded first. The resulting poem can be a little chaotic, since each poet does not know what has been written or what will be written. 

Souldrifting
Into a dry lakebed of black salt, into the dead oasis,
denuded husk, crest of dune, sand-vortex and grit,
I came to you from another place, an aged denizen, almost next door—
skin-worn and foot-fatigued, broken-hinged and hungry,
bent-backed, bow-legged, flat-footed, tired,
the standard of your presence rebuffing grains thrown by wind.
Deja-vu trickery: we’ve been here, heard that; seen this before.
I want to remember the only time this was real, a tangible togetherness,
sometimes vulture-eyed, sometimes raspy-voiced,
my snake-fangs and coyote bones sinking in a hazy ravine
just like the people of yesterday who were also me.
Moon-sputtering gloss in arid radiance, fingers curled to fist,
neither fully dead nor fully still alive,
I who am and will never be,
a quietness of lung-taking, releasing blue puffs to the natural beyond
like voices falling through to an openness of space,
hands touching spirit-vistas and the walls of eternity,
as you anticipate, soon to sleep in this place at last,
the place that holds the taproot of my life,
without me or without you and only certain-to-be.
There is no doubt you will remember how you found me here,
existing in the fear-of-death which is death;
driest reptile-skin and rattle-tail disappearing,
feet bound in gauze and linen, mouth grimaced open,
depleted essence letting me drift from that world to this,
the I who was certain would not die, the necessary birth, but no different;
so turn away from my scars and weary lines,
the woebegone hair, the lizard-tongue rough of my face,
failing eyes, bad knees, deafened ears, weakened heart;
knowing the soul’s simplicity makes a sacrament of everything else.

About the Poet
Richard King Perkins II is a state-sponsored advocate for residents in long-term care facilities. He lives in Crystal Lake, IL with his wife, Vickie and daughter, Sage. He is a three-time Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. Writing for six years, his work has appeared in more than a thousand publications including The Louisiana Review, Bluestem, Emrys Journal, Sierra Nevada Review, Roanoke Review, The Red Cedar Review and Crannog. He has poems forthcoming in The William and Mary Review, Sugar House Review, Plainsongs, Free State Review and Milkfist.

Canyon
Pop Art happened mostly in Manhattan.
A dirty hanging pillow swings from string
& holds a plum pit in its many mouths.
Nightingale sings from the lawn. Carroway
seeds in the green harbor light, the way
an eagle applies paint: with his beak
until he finishes art school, then he covers
himself in cyphers & flops around. Dig
tonality under the museum. Like the re-
contextualization of ephemera. Like the re-
configuration of magicians with pigeons
in their coat pockets. Everyone sweating
in the painting of a red candle turning blue.

About the Poet
Jim Davis is an MFA candidate at Northwestern University. His work has appeared in Wisconsin Review, Seneca Review, Adirondack Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Contemporary American Voices, among many others. Jim lives, writes, and paints in Chicago, where he reads for TriQuarterly and edits North Chicago Review.