Poetry

Encaustic Sun
You were told it threw off threads
of flame—coronas—told it was
a roiling star, a ripe orange set to rise.
That its combustion, like your youth,
would never end.

You were shown how, at its heart,
a great store of fusion lay untouched,
the furnace of forever.
A summer’s worth of flies,
blackened swaths burning beside freeways.

Spikes of cadmium yellow,
and plates thrown to break
their china finish. Each new day
like the last, vain for an hour
beneath its fog and frost.

Place of ghosts, of the stick-hands
witches wear when they pinch
to punish children.
Small pane of glassed-in combustibles,
tar-faced grid of fir behind fir behind fir.

Where were you asked to stand
in the picture of your life?
What pose had you to hold?
Who didn’t want to?
Which one had to press a button in order to shine?

Enchanté, you said, on meeting this star
and the sun worked harder
to make you pretty.
Until the earth grew old in its orbit,
years like shells imploding.

Artillery the dirge-song,
a cold-hardened ground
where the shy star stays close
to the horizon, well-behaved
as any mercenary.

About the Poet
Judith Skillman’s new book is House of Burnt Offerings from Pleasure Boat Studio. The author of fifteen collections of poetry, her work has appeared in J Journal, Tampa Review, Prairie Schooner, FIELD, The Iowa Review, Poetry, and other journals. Awards include grants from the Academy of American Poets and Washington State Arts Commission. Skillman taught in the field of humanities for twenty-five years, and has collaboratively translated poems from Italian, Portuguese, and French. Currently she works on manuscript review. Visitwww.judithskillman.com

The Forgiven
It must be a distant place,
beneath notice, far beneath
the zone where the despised
triumph by despising.
And where the masters, who must have
something of everything and believe
that victims are admired,
proclaim themselves in some way victimized.
They never notice us
and therefore do not envy. There is
an outside, but so compromised
by what’s within, drafty and damp,
that even when we can we seldom
go out into its endless curtailment.
Meals are our seasons, and the expressions
of those who ladle them,
neither kind nor interested nor hostile,
are what we have of nature apart from time.
We eat, and meditate
on what asparagus gave up for us,
the community of soup,
the rumors borne by even the weakest
coffee; then linger
until we’re told to go, and are equally
satisfied with leisure or the command.
There’s a room with books and games,
and an old broken medium whose green-
grey screen shows all we need to see.
Pieces are lost, the cards
have passed through many hands;
the books as is their habit came from elsewhere,
and move too fast, so that no one can catch them
or if we do we let them go.
Sometimes sun breaks through the frayed
curtains or bars. Then on the yellowed
paper in every drawer, somebody writes
for hours, mumbling, bringing
pen to lips, then crumples what was written,
which is what it was for. And sometimes, two
pair off. It’s always obvious,
and we, as subtly, applaud them for it.
When they don’t show up for dinner, breakfast, tea,
we discuss the efficacy
of love. It offers
a world beyond the world beyond our own,
escape, a motive for escape,
a fantasy of the first person plural.
Deliberating which, we fall
silent as dreaming
functionaries in gaudy white
pass through. For they themselves are dreams,
and normally don’t bother us.
But “we” is the most sacred word,
even when casually, unworthily
invoked in kingdoms of the I,
or whispered to oneself behind a wall.

V-Letter
Badiou compels agreement
when he says that the epic
corresponds to the age of the warrior
(king, feudal thug)
while lyric is the art of the soldier,
whose allegiance must be bought, and bought in bulk.
Whatever I wrote, I wrote
on a bunk in a troopship
amid the smell of feet
awaiting a torpedo.
Whoever I was, the “I”
in every other line
was mostly a matter of luck.
And you, who I hoped would read
the words found beside me
in trench or bunker
(they would be handed to you like a flag)
were always the one real thing.

About the Poet
Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness, both published by Story Line Press, and the author of a collection of shorter poems, A Poverty of Words (Prolific Press, 2015). He has appeared in Hudson Review, Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, Die Gazette (Munich), The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Representations, Magma(UK), Iota (UK), Bateau, Main Street Rag, Fulcrum, etc.  His poems have appeared online in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone Review, Diagram, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire  Review, Mudlark, Occupoetry, Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, Thunderdome, Modern Poetry Quarterly Review, etc. He is currently adjunct professor of creative writing at George Washington University.

Candlelight is a Form of Good-bye
This is my caged bird, that’s roasting night sounds,
measuring secrets. In the meadow, a wicker-haired

godmother waits with clear eyes, taking slugs of the
overripe darkness. We dive headfirst into a steel

canyon, distend to a sky-worn quilt. Prince watches
from his balcony; wants to say forever, or till I

break the spell.  But lies rattle on branches, erase my
candlelight. At the birthplace of our de-creation, the
sky leathers clay furrows.

I offer cinnamon thrushes. He already knows. Memories,
just as hearts, became ungenerous with time.

About the Poet
A Prundaru is a visual artist, writer and translator, who lives a stone’s throw away from the birthplace of milk chocolate. Her work is forthcoming in Litro Magazine, 3 AM Magazine and Rattle. She has a photo blog at https://socksinflipflops.wordpress.com/.

Cutting Edge
Note: This poem is written in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin.
Dere’s wun invisible razor
slashing through da ages

forevah sharp
and constantly in motion.

It wuz always moa
den just wun passing whimsy.

It wuz wun ascendance
from biological servitude.

Da progression has been moving along

evah since da big bang of da mind
wen explode into da brain.

Take wun look
at all da accumulated knowledge to inherit

in da awakened realm of homo sapiens.

While da earth spins on its axis
and da universe keeps expanding

it’s amazing to realize
dat evolution is wat you make of it.

Units of culture
and replicated means

passed along in wun baton
can now double as wun scepter.

King of da apes
is presently emperor of da solar system

and to tink
it started somewheah back wen

aftah our simian ancestors
left da safety of da trees.

Wit one slice into da darkness
all da neurons wen flash

and consciousness wen advance itself
to set da world on da cutting edge.

About the Poet
Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai’i Creole English) and in American-English. He edited Ho’omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature.  Some of his recent Pidgin writing has appeared in Otoliths, Snorkel, Juked, Hawai’i Pacific Review, and Revolution John, among others.  Balaz is an avid supporter of Hawaiian Islands Pidgin writing in the expanding context of World Literature.  He presently lives in Ohio.

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.

Copy Right
I hope someone tries
to steal my words
and pass it off
as their own.
This poem is yours
if you grab first.
I don’t want
to be the only
crazy one.

About the Poet
E.T. Milkton writes from the clouds beyond the horizon. He enjoys hiking, fishing and eating meat.

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. 

The Ephemeral Map
When he arrived in Alaska,
before it was known as Alaska,
before it was known to live
language and stories,
rivers and lakes, and towns,
he was lost with words.

A group of fishers grumbled.
He spread his arms. In the snow he drew
with the corner of his glasses
an X. He drew between them
a circle in the air and pointed
down with his palms.

He continued from the X
a line to where he began.
He punctuated with lakes
and mountains and a forest scene.
He drew a house at the end,
and placed his palm upon his chest.

He pointed forward. He drew
in the unconnected distance
a star. He pointed to the space
between. The fisherman laughed
and piled a snow ball in the between
and rolled it all the way home.

Lesson Plan: Teaching Terroir 1638 C. E.
The first time you’re lost,
scoop a handful of earth.
Rub a smudge across your gums
and tongue. Pocket the clump.

Do this at each occurrence.
When you’re home, redistribute
the dirt along your kitchen
table in regions like a king.

Where you were lost,
press your thumb and spittle
drool into the hole.
Here, you’ll grow your grapes.

And while you cannot mold time,
though it can age, or plot
experience, you can name
your garden, and water and twist the vines.

When you bottle vinegar and wine
and offer it out for trade,
customers will learn your land
by tasting where you found your way.

About the Poet
Tom Holmes is the founding editor of Redactions: Poetry, Poetics, & Prose, and in July 2014, he also co-founded RomComPom: A Journal of Romantic Comedy Poetry. He is also author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Cave, which won The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award for 2013 and was released in 2014. His writings about wine, poetry book reviews, and poetry can be found at his blog, The Line Break: http://thelinebreak.wordpress.com/.

I Guide Stevie Wonder by the Hand
I wait patiently at the corner, watching lights
I say nothing, but walk. He walks.
His hand is slim in mine, cold and dry.
He doesn’t know it, but the color collects in the bed of his fingernails:
This is where he is blackest.
I guide him around a corner
The building with cinder glass obscures what’s inside
I imagine rich people there
I say, “rich white people, but we can’t see them working.”
I nudge him a little and he steps a little higher, avoiding
Legs laying out on the sidewalk, splayed
Brown bagged bottle between them.
Beside the bakery
We smell nuts and caramel cooking
I tell him that everything is beautiful:
Cakes tiered for weddings, cookies decked out for celebrations, candies small and brown.
“Rich white people dressed in furs and cashmere, flashing bills I can’t recognize.”
I walk him further and slow my step over ice
Around dog shit
.                 His nose wrinkles
We are near the park and I angle him—
We walk across the block long park.
The grass is crunchy with winter.
In the exact middle of the park,
Stevie stops me,
We stand still and my heart feels too violent.
He says, “Listen. Just shhh.”

Play Date: Tina Turner | Janis Joplin
I painted her toenails blue
Though the bottle said “azure”
We say this word “azure” aloud
Exaggerating the ‘Z’
And share sounds that make our lips
Pucker.
I blow air on her toes
She blows air across the waves.

About the Poet
DeMisty D. Bellinger teaches creative writing at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in many places, most recently in Driftless Review and Specter Magazine. Her short-short “Tiger Free Days,” first published in WhiskeyPaper, is on the Wigleaf’s Top 50 Short Fictions of 2014. DeMisty lives in Massachusetts with her husband and twin daughters.

A Cold Draft in Summer
In our full-moon drive,
headlights focus ahead
on the warm summer highway.
Suddenly the moonbeams
hang like icicles
as we come to the only house
where snow is falling,

where the lawn is white,
the roof is buried
nearly to the chimney top.
Nothing but shadows drift
across this freezing place.

The chimney breathes not
a smoke signal or spark
to show that someone
is tending fire.

We slow down but keep idling
homeward where our porch light
burns darkness away, where window
light melts our place into summer,
where we live always near the boiling point.

But here in the sudden winter, a single puff
rises from the snowcapped chimney
as if someone has given up the ghost.

You turn your head and shiver, turn off
the air conditioner, glance back
at the snow light drifting behind us, and sigh:
Who chooses to live and die in bitter cold?
Maybe they can’t take the heat.

I break out in cold sweat.
Even ice can burn, I say,
stepping on the gas.

A Sun too High to Light the Way
In a forgotten graveyard’s fog
thick as spiderwebs,
I hear the owl’s cold call
turn to caw, a cat’s purr
turn to dirge.

Nothing flies beneath
a mask of heavy darkness.
Nothing has enough shape
to have a name,
but to the touch, hard stones
stand like broken teeth.

Like the memory of the sun,
the path beneath me disappears.
The safety of tree limbs
creaks way above my head,
strains against the fog wall.

A crow could not see his shadow here.
A man could only feel himself falling here.

Feathers and limbs settle for this ground,
bury the stone that might have named me.
Imitating light, the silk shroud ties all
the lost together.

About the Poet
Robert S. King, a native Georgian, now lives in Lexington, Kentucky. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Atlanta Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Diary of the Last Person on Earth (Sybaritic Press, 2014) and Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014). Robert’s work has been nominated several times for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of Net award. He is currently editor-in-chief of Kentucky Review, www.kentuckyreview.org.