Poetry

Dark Water

Light decides to float on its back around the surface instead of looking inside. You should have seen the way Grandma ran and dove all in one motion
when you went under. One minute you’re flashing Little Mermaid floats, the next you’re vanished in a way that makes me question object
permanence. But you bobbed back up before any of us could even get to you. Hands in the air as if to say I am the drowner, not the drownee here.
Still, I wondered how we would have found you in all that copper water, lead-heavy and stamped with everything it wants to devour.

About the Poet
Kailey Tedesco is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee and the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical. She received her MFA in creative writing from Arcadia University. She’s a dreamer who believes in ghosts and mermaids. You can find her work in FLAPPERHOUSE, Menacing Hedge, Crack the Spine, and more. For more information, visit kaileytedesco.com.

Autumn Day
I enter the sylvan shadows,
full of a sense of mystery,
seeking to visit my present
and embark upon the
un-happened event.

Lichen on the rocks,
moist damp moss,
lap at my feet, as leaves
flutter to dank ground,
piling on flora compost,
crisp under foot, yet so
woodland moribund.
Suddenly my soul stirs.
It heaves into the past,
full of life-force.

The un-happened event had
not happened. I could emerge
from my box, my casket-to-be,
a case-box study of willful worms
angry at leaves of received wisdom,
hungry to destroy present and past.
That would leave my world a compost pile,
a warren of decaying status quo ante
under attack by a vast ant army
far more numerous than we
inhabitants of the Anthropocene.

If high tech can teleport me to
my un-happened event,
I can fend off the worms and
restore leaves to their mother trees.
I can nuke the ants into Eternity,
bring hope to all people. But this
is selfish rumination.

Time and Eternity co-habit this
forest. Everything must be as
it was. My time has not come.
The theology of worms and the
dogma of ants say it is so.

About the Poet
G. Louis Heath, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1969, teaches at Ashford University, Clinton, Iowa. He retires in May, 2016. He enjoys reading his poems at open mics. He often hikes along the Mississippi River, stopping to work on a poem he pulls from his back pocket, weather permitting. His books include Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly, Long Dark River Casino, and Vandals In The Bomb Factory. His most recent poems have been published in Poppy Road Review, Writing Raw, Inkstain Press, Verse-Virtual, and Squawk Back. He can be contacted at gheathorov@gmail.com.

Sketch
Feel this here: jaws snapping
in the dark,
the owl hoots out the shape
of the night,
fresh wind stirs,
time slowly stretches,
the moment stands still,
stillness stands momentarily,
stars appear on the lid of
transient world
and nothing else –
the future looks deep in
our eyes and there are depths
to look into.

About the Poet
Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in USA and Europe. He has won several European awards for his poetry and he’s nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others.

Forklift Congé Chaos Buds Average Llama Prim
By Hillel Broder, Katie Hibner, Daniel Jones, W.F. Lantry, Ian Rice, Richard King Perkins II, and James Valvis

You can ladle me up with the bees.
Goodbye ferocious meadows, fencelines, raucous birds.
How your eyes painted light into every corner of darkness
though we cracked a kind smile, the clouds conspired otherwise
I’ll just leave this here.
When a man can’t give his liver he’s not going to give his heart.
An occasion peeled from the window.

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. 

Autophobia
I went to the party looking for an adversary
but found it in my own fist
on the walk back home through a film
of vodka and sewer grate steam.
It was late but the neighbor kids were still
playing dodge ball in the parking lot, saying,
The target is his head, aim for his head,
picking on the little guy—probably someone’s
younger brother. In a home video I’m four
with a spray bottle and my mom keeps saying,
Spray yourself in the face, Jackson!,
and I’m laughing because I can’t see
the clouds of gore looming over 2014. Today I went
to therapy with a black eye for the third time
and I could tell my therapist was uncomfortable
asking about it, so instead I talked about
my childhood—about the time my brother rode
his tricycle down the front steps
and killed two teeth. My family thought
I’d pushed him, because somehow
violence bursting outward is easier to understand.
But what’s so incomprehensible about knocking shadows
out the back of your own head?
I was thinking about my sick friend
when I realized he was probably thinking about me,
his face in someone’s toilet bowl, his bruises
obscure self-portraits. He used to say, Why not drink,
why not smoke? You’re only dying slow
and on purpose.

About the Poet
Jackson Burgess is currently pursuing dual MFAs in Fiction and Poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as a Truman Capote Fellow. His first chapbook, Pocket Full of Glass, won the 2014 Clockwise Competition and is forthcoming from Tebot Bach. He has also placed work in Rattle, The Los Angeles Review, Tin House Flash Fridays, and elsewhere.

The Colors of Mirrors

.                                                     For Sophie Mitchell

When you’re horizontal, asleep,
all mirrors are precisely white:
They slyly pluck out this
or that secret, etching them
delicately so they remain secrets.

When darkness begins to leave,
quiet as a butterfly’s breath, they
turn almost as blue as a flatted
note you abandoned on a table
hoping it would stay unread.

In full daylight, they disguise
themselves as plain silver
tricking you into believing
you see only yourself and never
notice that you’re blind.

Come sunset, they sing loud
in oranges and violets. Always
just south of the right key to remind
you they’re watching you alertly
as a bent second hand

until you tread—softly-socked—
upstairs to bed. Then they
put on their watchtower faces
and perfectly white glasses.
They read you all night

and they laugh and laugh and laugh.

About the Poet
Mark J. Mitchell studied writing at UC Santa Cruz under Raymond Carver, George Hitchcock and Barbara Hull. His work has appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies and has also been nominated for both Pushcart Prizes and The Best of the Net: Good Poems, American Places, Hunger Enough, Retail Woes and Line Drives. Lent 1999 is new from Leaf Garden Press His chapbook, Three Visitors won the Negative Capability Press Chapbook Competition in 2010.  Artifacts and Relics, another chapbook, was just released by Folded Word. His novel, Knight Prisoner, is available from Vagabondage He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian and filmmaker Joan Juster.

Toneless Testamentum

Pausing before a coffin, I find myself.
In my soul or casing, nothing surprising.
Some years ago, little or no money,
I thought I would sail into the street,
Take to the ship, throw myself upon
His sword, and fill the ocean with me.
All, not in words, went out of an evening:
Moonlight, tortures, and pouring.
The days of my life declared things.
When you ought to be suffering,
The regular feasts. When against
The crowd and efforts to escape,
Skirting brambles and a rapid rush,
Stainless. To do with such sights
And disembogue is something
Amusing. Does it grow, though,
Fainter? In a different way, lack
Of unconsciousness gains on
The vessel, we hear the whistle,
Fog wills, companionship passes
And the hotel stays afloat, on
The last day we mingle wind
And water, rowing needless
With all our strength. Great
A hurry to stop, and for the food
Of each, we left perishing.
I have thought of this and rest.

Region Of Sky Unaware Of Saltrot

As at the tarnished
dusk, reminded remark
of day, of that same
going down, ingeniously
silent, a gown half
evening mauled
carelessly and strewn
on water, on rock,

And whereupon perceiving
That same depreciatory
sacrament, that third
state, delighted insignia
in a high room, the many
faces, astonished, hardly
made but by a thrilled
movement persuading
the two hosts, in duet,
though trembling, among
the scattered mirrors,
to bless what guests
remained, as they stood
near the underdeck
reaching for a single coat,

Filled the mind with shadow,
the same contained the mind,
a jaspered indistinctness then
the party seemed to be,
discolorous, for it was later
than they thought they’d stay,
the marbling forces already
well commuted, impartible,
the coat taken, cars waiting,
for each a habitude, and
the hosts still mingling
on the water.

About the Poet
Daniel Brian Jones edits FOLDER (www.foldermagazine.com). Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK, Prelude, Vector, Spilled Milk, and elsewhere. Music: Harmonium Songs (settings of Stevens poems). He is an instructor at the Atlantic Acting School in Chelsea. Upcoming: the theatrical world premiere of John Ashbery’s “Litany,” in collaboration with dancer/choreographer Sarah Haarmann. www.danielbrianjones.com.

The Echo of Tranquility
and the force of that sacred connexion of sound brought into obedience—dale into vale a way by the ray to tread over spread to slow before go near the cries from the flies for gloom after doom due to want after scant to still for the will without share for the fare

outside bestows with repose except free for me to condemn between them along side ever supply’d to bring forth the spring but forego down below from wrong before long off descends by bends till fell into a cell in the obscure behind poor near lay to astray under

thatch with a latch to care for the pair to retire after fire with rest for the guest in store for the lore smil’d after beguil’d by mirth at the hearth by tries for the flies to impart for the heart with woe over flow beyond spy’d until cry’d after opprest with breast toward

spurn’d though unreturn’d to rove for love up brings with things to decay from they for name after fame through sleep then weep over sound of the found for a jest in the nest to a hush after blush since he said until betry’d to the rise of the skies in the view out of too

with breast since confest about alarms for the charms by the rude to intrude but cry’d to reside through share or despair past stray by the way over Tyne never mine for he turns to me by arms with charms on came after flame for the crowd after bow’d down to

strove for love by clad onto had since he after me beyond day to display for refin’d in the mind under tree over me with shine off mine unto art at the heart in vain by pain to scorn before forlorn with pride after died beneath fault for the sought to pay for a lay but hid

after did to die into I out cry’d but chide under breast since pressed for dear over here to see since thee within heart by part to resign after mine in part for the heart before a true prior to too.

About the Poet
Nicholas D. Nace is a poet and critic living in Virginia. He is the editor of two volumes of essays devoted to the art of close reading: Shakespeare Up Close (Arden 2012) and The Fate of Difficulty (forthcoming). He is the compiler and editor of The Broadview Anthology of Satire, and his essays have appeared in The Burlington Magazine, The Book Collector, and numerous other journals. Other of his poems are forthcoming from Maggy, Rabbit, and Fence.

The Space Between
Something lives inside the hollow space between pressed keys of a piano. The tiniest of cracks dig under into a hungry dwelling of wood and string. Carefully orchestrated space between measures of plump pitted notes turn to silence. Their pauses grow from an empty place.

About the Poet
Rebecca Lee currently lives in Charlottesville, Va. She has been published in Cleaver Magazine, The Noctua Review, Existere Journal, Rusty Nail, etc.

Internecine
The waiter gives my grandchildren
a cantaloupe sized ball of pizza dough

as formless as Madagascar on the world
map. The children throw it back and forth,

tear off pieces, steal it from one another,
offer the tiniest pea to their father who tries

to rope them in, put it down, don’t make
such a mess. And so to distract them

I stick dough under my nose: a big snot
I say. I put a piece in my ear bursting

with wax. I fashion a grotesque beard.
So we are all of us laughing. But they want

to copy me, make up a sudden vomit,
a baseball cap, a cell phone. The pizza

which is life itself has come. Have I ruined dinner?
I make up for my bad reputation, call for the check.

About the Poet
Steve Ablon has published four books of poems: Tornado Weather (Mellen Press, 1993), Flying Over Tasmania (Fithian Press, 1997),  Blue Damsels, (Peter Randall Press, 2005), and Night Call (Plain View Press, 2011). His work has appeared in many magazines. He is an adult and child psychoanalyst and an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.