the fancy radio my wife gifted into my simple pickup has finally died despite all manner of punching and twirling, little instrument won’t rouse, nor even static startle, and the bright digital time sign has flown silence, salient, at first, like a big embarrassing passenger, crowds the cab I pull over, pour a bit of citrus vodka into an empty fast-food coffee cup on the crow-rowdy gravel road to the river, windows down, an old channel crackles Ted writes, paints, plays tennis with Amy Lee. Nominated twice for Best of the Net, and twice for … Continue reading analog by Ted Jean→
I gave up early: and went to a houseboat to mourn: both named a beer and splashed next to woes about your love in a bunk of redwood done messy by stinkbugs. your adjectives were pointed the day that barley was cut, reckless, in Groningen: ………. sultry. magnetic.. taut …… .and then you said you would arrive on time, or late to draw me out and push on my groin– and the void in between us became not measured in feet but in eye glances gone awry: looking at the cusp of … Continue reading The Amstel by Isaac Amend→
Morels ………………….For Tom Proutt In my latest unsuccessful hunt for the unicorn of the woods, I found a two-point buck skull, a square of soapstone, a 1952 Mennen bottle, and a foxhole. Lots of fiddleheads, lots of May apples, and an ant floating in a pool of water in a leaf. A snail slugged its way across the duff as birds and squirrels sang and chittered in the branches above. The dog ran chasing sticks and splashing through the creek bed. I think I may have discovered a spring, but I am not certain: water … Continue reading Morels and Fun, 2 poems by Stuart Gunter→
Sending simultaneous submissions is a fact of a poet’s life whether you practice the strategy or not. How such a maneuver began may be one of those mysteries of history, but it is acceptable to most literary venues these days. It may have come about by the eagerness and impatience of poets frustrated by the often long waits and by thinking that someone out there would just love their work. I suppose the more complicated recordkeeping of this doubling (tripling) up has been taken care of by sophisticated spreadsheet programs. Simultaneous submissions is a strategy … Continue reading Submissions Etiquette by Fred Wilbur→
….1. France. Poppies blooming blood. Hedged by four sheets strung on wire, my grandparents spent their wedding night, December 1917: a New York married-barracks, moans muffled the night before the men shipped out. Three faces to a porthole on a transport ship. “Fish in a barrel” riflemen would say, sometimes with pity. Who would notice a patient in an Army hospital with a different kind of cough? ….2. Tennessee. Fields overflowing corn. As a girl, my wife heard it from her grandfather. Elmer could bear to tell it only once. He’d turned 18. After morning … Continue reading Pandemic, 1918 by Eric Forsbergh→
“Lose something every day. Accept the fluster . . .” (Elizabeth Bishop) Every once in a while I open one of too-many, tiny boxes, and there you are, bright stab of memory: My brave lover from long ago. I see you exactly as you were then, because time took care to preserve the details, the same way amber traps an insect for eternity. One could almost map the genome from this fossil: golden ring with its garnet chip. I used to wear it on my little finger. There are things we find that were never … Continue reading Reliquary by Annie Stenzel→
“An artist is said to be original exactly when he takes up the challenge of tradition and makes us see something more than we already knew.” Demetri Porphyrios. Classical Architecture. I am a fundamentalist. But contemporary connotations dredge up all sorts of pejoratives that I want to dispel. I want you to understand fundamental. There are fundamental math equations, fundamental conventions of a civilized society (etiquette), of language use, rules of public road driving, of constructing a printed book, of lasting friendships, fundamental principles of civil rights in an educated and democratic country. In … Continue reading Bedrock Poetry by Fred Wilbur→
It’s wrong to feel lucky when a poplar blooms. …………Branches spit out slender pinks below low clouds. In fields here, we find arrowheads. Ancient whispers on the ridge. One death begs another. …………Axe, arrow, bullet, bomb. A siege of poisoned bolts. Up the road, old battlefields sit surprised, suddenly covered in grey blankets …………of stinging dust. Charming fencerows buried. Once, old soldiers sold poppies, tried to warn us. Some rode to save us. …………Yet Zeus swung back and slung his fire. Capitol’s newly fallen: an ugly man of bare ambition, youths who rose through thunder, … Continue reading It’s Wrong to Feel Lucky by Marjorie Gowdy→
Vigil Outside the nurses’ station, third floor east, twilight spreads its white canopy over the busy avenue of bright buildings. Down the hall, an orderly lofts a pale sheet over a vacant bed. In the next room, the ventilator pulses on, pushing a steady breeze through the cracked wall of a failing lung. In the dim light, the old woman tethered to a fever floats under the fluorescent aura shimmering above her head. Beneath shuttered eyelids, night pools. Right up to the edge. Work Gloves Nothing much to look at lying on the shelf, one … Continue reading Vigil and Work Gloves, 2 poems by Ron Stottlemyer→
As a very small child I learned language just like all small children. Only in my case there were some mysterious words that took me years to sort out their true meaning. There were words like Amtrak, lugao, Santo Tomás, Los Baños, Baguio, paratroopers. These words were part of my family life and lore. They were the words of World War II internees (another one of those words!). I played with my mother’s crutches, pretending to walk on them by putting my arms where her hands went. I watched my brother put on his leg … Continue reading Bookends by Elizabeth Dudley Wilbur→
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