Monday, July 30, 2012

A Poem by John Casquarelli

I used to write wishes on paper airplanes
 
each hurricane is a car thief
riding by moonlight
to open space measured by
illusory waves that leave
random debris for us
to throw at one another
to stone ourselves with pet rocks
because it’s easier to believe a story
the less true it sounds
 
my hand on your thigh
you smile as if nothing happened
but when our conversation shifts
to music theater last night’s rain
you pretend to look out the window
surprised that I didn’t see the fish
in the ship’s wake
 
and you want to know why
the same questions return now and then
like those little facts that tug on the end
of a line
so that the whole world
pirouettes rolls shatters
near girders to one thousand
miles of asphalt highway
impaired by excessive anxiety
 
scream about how it all
was just a misunderstanding
to avoid what remains
of your bite marks
on both my neck
and imagination

 




John Casquarelli is an English professor at Boricua College in New York. He received his M.F.A. in the Creative Writing program at Long Island University. He was awarded the 2010 Esther Hyneman Award for poetry. His work has appeared in several publications including Pyrokinection, Downtown Brooklyn, Kinship of Rivers, By The Overpass, The Mind[less] Muse, Brooklyn Paramount, Pulp, The International Rebecca West Society, The Poetry Project Blog, and Sun’s Skeleton. His first full-length book, On Equilibrium of Song, was published by Overpass Books (2011).

Saturday, July 28, 2012

A Poem by Marilyn "Misky" Braendeholm

Doors

She paused, her thumb caressing
that familiar dent on the brass door knob.
A brief glance, a feathered blink was all that she

took with her, a few memories were
enough.  Dare she hope that this house might fill
with more than opaque hues of rainbows

shining through her tears.  She wanted to know
how this happened, who’d gilded the past
twenty-years so she’d think she was content. 

Please.  Stay.  Don’t go.

His voice so slight that she wondered if he
heard himself speak.  She was a fool in love,
living a fool’s life, and not knowing

her own mind.  She turned toward him.  A pause.
A tear.  A smile.  I’ll stay, she said, knowing
that she’d use a different door next time.







Marilyn“Misky” Braendeholmlives in the United Kingdom. Her interests include religious (gothic) architecture, gardening, recipe testing, baking yeasted and sourdough bread, photography, and writing. She has participated in four NaPoWriMo challenges, and has poems and fiction published with Mouse Tales Press, Sprouts Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, and Pyrokinection. She has two grown sons and two grandchildren. You can find more of her poetry at http://miskmask.wordpress.com


Thursday, July 26, 2012

Three Poems by Jack T. Marlowe

indigestion

tears drip
into the mix
like hot
bacon
grease

an essential
ingredient
for the dirty
gravy that
you greedily
sop up

with
your dry
biscuit
heart

but i've lost
my appetite
anyway

it's been too
long since
i've been
served love
for breakfast




knives in waiting

when love-
making
devolves
into mere
fucking

a shape-
shifter is
exposed

your
lover's
new de-
meanor

more
feline
than
female

a feral
passion
sinking
into
shoulder
blades

with the
caress
of sharp
nails

ten little
harbingers
of the
inevitable
back-
stabbing
to come




will work for love

i wasn't looking
for a handout
when i said
that i needed
change
in my life

but she handed
me those three
little words
anyway
like some dirty
coins that had
already been
spent on some-
one else and
returned for
a refund

even so
i accepted
the offering
considered it
a gift
and gave her
a gift
of my own

and it's
true that
money
doesn't
buy love

but it's also
true that love
doesn't buy
respect
consideration
compassion
or even a hot
lunch on Sunday

and meanwhile
that silver
is still jingling
in my pocket

rattling
like the chains
that shackled
my heart
back when i
actually cared

and i'm still
working
for some kind
of change
in my life

because
the change
that i got
wasn't
the change
that i needed

it's hard to say
just who's to
blame, but
either way

i'm stuck
with a handful
of cold reckoning--
more legal
than tender--

hanging around
a pay phone
with nobody
to call




Jack T. Marlowe is a disillusioned, formerly romantic rogue from Dallas,
TX. A writer of poetry and fiction and a veteran of the open mic, his work
has appeared in Carcinogenic Poetry, Montucky Review, Black-Listed
Magazine, Visceral Uterus, Handful of Dust and elsewhere. Jack is also
the editor of Gutter Eloquence Magazine (www.guttereloquence.com).

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

A Poem by Ali Znaidi

Morning Serenade
A red rose wakes up,
lazy in its bed/bud,
washed by dew drops—
constellations
of crystal white bubbles.
Sun’s lights gradually perforate
its soft skin.
The white bubbles
evaporate in the air
to the rhythm of the red singing
kettle
in the kitchen.
Warm breath of coffee
mingles
with the sweet scents of the rose
on the red saucer.
Darling, are you here?
I want to serve you this morning.
Ali Znaidi lives in Redeyef, Tunisia. He graduated with a BA in Anglo-American Studies in 2002. He teaches English at Tunisian public secondary schools. He writes poetry and has an interest in literature, languages, and literary translations. His work has appeared in The Bamboo Forest, The Camel Saloon, phantom kangaroo, BoySlut, fortunates.org, Otoliths, Dead Snakes, Speech Therapy Poetry Zine, streetcake magazine, The Rusty Nail, Yes,Poetry, The South Townsville micro poetry journal, Shot Glass Journal, the fib review, Ink Sweat and Tears, and Mad Swirl, and is upcoming in other ezines. He also writes flash fiction for the Six Sentence Social Network—http://sixsentences.ning.com/profile/AliZnaidi.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

A Poem by Jack Horne

30th February
 
She came home to me today!
Time stood still
But those five years are erased.
It’s like she never left:
No awkward silences, just kisses.
Our love’s as strong as ever.
 
We won’t argue again;
This time it will work.
I knew she still loved me all along.
Angry words were empty words.
All that matters is she’s here: home.
 
 
 
Jack lives in Plymouth, England. Many of Jack’s poems, stories and articles have been published.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Two Poems by De Jackson

Friction
 
She
sees
the words
‘I love you’
as if they were not
penned in a hand far from her own.
Holds them up to the light and feels
their heat scorch her skin
throws them in
and lets
them
burn.
 
 
Fiction
 
He
says
the words
‘I love you’
as if they are true
but her healing heart hears secrets.
She closes her eyes, says nothing
because after all,
she can lie
as well
as
he.
 
 
 
De Jackson is a poet, a parent and a stubborn survivor of multiple past heart massacres. She writes ad copy for money, and poems for love. She has now been ridiculously happily married for almost 14 years, but when it comes to poeming her past life, she pens much, and Fibs often. She clacks the good, the bad and the ugly daily at www.whimsygizmo.wordpress.com.
 

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

A Poem by Douglas Polk

A Victim

dark places are where I reside,
the memory of unwanted touches,
bring the demons alive,
clawing and grabbing,
addicts desperate to meet their needs,
cynical and abused,
the self unloved,
trust,
a concept forgot along the way,
dark places are where I reside.
 
 
 
Douglas Polk is a poet living in the wilds of central Nebraska with his wife and two boys. He has had over 150 poems, three books of poems, and two children's books published. Poetry books are: In My Defense, The Defense Rests, On Appeal. The children's books are: The Legend of Garle Pond, and Marie's Home.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Two Poems by William Doreski

Love Poem Too Late

In the dream creaks a dungeon. I'm there
with a hole in my pants.
Martyr? Saint?

Enough to be a sinner.
Crabgrass pries the flagstones apart.
Sweet William Flycatcher's at the window.

Time to learn to dance.
I dance awake and there you are,
back turned,

wearing brave new panties,
silk too fine to violate.
No longer lovers, but we share a bed,

so I'll tell you my dream.
What of those menstrual flowers?
What of the dim lacings

of death between us,
thin and final as your underwear?
Old jailbirds mated,

we'll wake in dungeons every day
and cry "There's been a mistake!"
You're still asleep, even as this poem

crosses the border into print
and I step out free among
the dewy vegetables;

and you, drowsy as August maples,
linger like a toothache
I've learned to love to ignore.


Glen Cove Day School

A siege of daisies wilted
in the fog. Glen Cove's lone buoy
winked to lure us onto the rocks,

but we were hard on each other,
we bled on the polished floors,
lonely without a mess of children.

Your two weren't enough; they lobbed
spitballs into the damp rooms
but failed to rouse their elders.

Fog grayed the space between us,
our voices whetted through cotton.

Outside, I picked one daisy while
you roped your kids into the car.
White petals, heart of fool's gold.
I shredded it for a single lie.

Love couldn't penetrate that fog,
no more than an air hammer
would suffice to murder a ghost.


His work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently City of Palms (AA Press, 2012).

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Two Poems by James Sanchez

I guess the dream went a little off course
Alone in your panties lying on the floor pretending to be alive
The tears soothing your sense of guilt
Shower water like pebbles falling on glass
The breathing of the air conditioner drowning out his foolish humming
Happiness joy
The conquest
Why do you lay on the ground praying for a change of mind?
His heart alone in your thoughts
He washes his penis with hard hands
He cleanses what has sullied you
Loneliness all for loneliness
It should have felt better
You should be perfect
The water races towards the drain as your dreams collect near the bottom



It is the sun that scares me
It is so consistent
I can’t be that way
I waver my resolve grows weaker
I want to smell your love like children smell their father’s shirts
Shirts littered with the memories of 9 to 5’s on factory lines
Memories of loose women loving inadequacy away
I wish I could be consistent like the pain of your memory
It holds me hostage at thought point
I shiver in covers soaked in the sweat of lustful romps through visceral bliss
I am the doubt of all who love
Question the primacy of these feelings
The battle waged at night while children dream of trips to beaches lined with crystal sand
They dream of baseball games where pitchers hurl spheres of pure truth
The catchers brace themselves knowing that the fate of the world rests on one strike
I am alone tonight with my thoughts
My arms are too short to reach for the gun
I am scared that love is a ruse
A trick played by god in order to keep me alive and wondering
It is the sun that scares me at night when the world whispers its gentle lullaby



James Sanchez holds a B.A. in English from Florida International University. He teacher English and Creative writing at Ronald W. Reagan/Doral Senior High school. He resides in Miami, Fl. His work has been published in The Acentos Review, Apeiron Review and Poui: The Cave Hill Literary Annual.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

A Poem by Michael H. Brownstein

THIS WAS ONCE A LOVE POEM
 
Go on; enjoy yourself. I'm not returning
home this winter. I don't want to make the mistake
of another year,
Missouri a long way off,
full of superstition, omens, and witch's meat.
I'll miss the ripeness of soil, the grazing river,
wild turkeys, possums in the abandoned car,
the red fox living beneath the house, voles
camped in the hills. Some things need endings
more than others, superstition a heavy master.
Splitting poles, spitting on the broom, Sankofa birds,
pockets hanging inside out near running water,
the fourth floor, a sneeze without a bless you,
how the new year begins at midnight.
 
 
 

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

A Poem by Jeanpaul Ferro

79 Degree Probability of Loss


What beautiful death there is in Madonna de Campiglio,
the peasant people frozen in ice in dance,
the slopes of Austria , and now they call it Italy ,
another place you must come, one more dream to put your trust in,

and you can’t believe you’ll ever do it again,
swimming in the light and shadows where you’ve drowned,
the gum arabic and green volatilize of valle Verzasca
the river where you saw the diver from Lucerne go down three times,
the way you held his girl friend, the river from the glacier,
minion and nonpareil, crystalline, his body preserved,
Russian experiment in the stone houses of Sonogno,

the ache in my body as you ease yourself against me,
the way your legs cower out, the ecstasy in your pain,
in the white under your flesh in your bones,
the risk, the knife of your spine,
and I take it, twist and turn and bludgeon it,
and the body moves, consumes all of me, and you give in,
and you die in a way too, so cold here in the Dolomites,
always writing by candlelight, the bathroom out in the hallway,
and dance without music—

the sound of your hands against the piano back in the states.



 Jéanpaul Ferro is a novelist, short fiction author, and poet from Providence, Rhode Island. An 8-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Jéanpaul’s work has appeared on NPR, Contemporary American Voices, Columbia Review, Emerson Review, Connecticut Review, Portland Monthly, and others. He is the author of Essendo Morti – Being Dead (Goldfish Press, 2009), nominated for the 2010 Griffin Prize in Poetry; and Jazz (Honest Publishing, 2011) nominated for both the 2012 Griffin Prize in Poetry and the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Prize in Poetry. He is represented by the Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency. He currently lives along the south coast of southern Rhode Island . Website: www.jeanpaulferro.com * E-mail: jeanpaulferro@netzero.net

Sunday, July 8, 2012

A Poem by Andrew Rhodes


Line Written on Forgotten Passion


My wide eyes closed tight before they could weep
and I became baffled at the tempted sight
of all the fragments my heart laid 'fore me
when I was no more man than a child.

My lips they trembled red and somewhat flushed
at sounds of the tempest in the nightfall
that came to me amidst the strangest dreams
when I was a boy in a woman's eye.





Friday, July 6, 2012

A Poem by Madhuchhanda Karmaker


Platonic Love......

Lazing at the spoils of life
Tugged between regrets of
Lost yesterdays and
Sky scraped tomorrows
Few drops of coffee
Drifts from cup to lips
Covering the blanket with fear
Lest the weakness of human flesh
Is revealed
The morning fog runs in the street
Selling stolen dreams to Plato
Alluring him to repent
For not getting drenched
In the rains
When heaven cried
As sheets turn wet
Taunts memory
Forgetting to remind season
The reason that made
The flowers go dry
Silently Plato prays
As the poisoned republic sigh…



Madhuchhanda Karmakar , completed her masters in business management from university of Calcutta, India. She was working as a research associate at National Institute Of Management, Calcutta(NIMC),India . Currently she is working as a lecturer in human resource management and organizational behavior at Army Institute Of Management, Kolkata, India. She has the necessary corporate exposure, which helps her to apply her academic skills in real time business solutions.

Her current research are includes human resource management, knowledge management,application of chaos and complextity concepts in management.

She didn't move on to specialize in English literature though; she loves to play with words. She is influenced by surrealistic style of unstructured writings. Her writings come from a personal trajectory, rather than following any prescribed canonical structure. They have a range of viewpoints, mainly from a point of view of a female protagonist, within the realm of fantasy genre.

One of her poem CLEOPATRA has been accepted for publication in the MUSE FOR WOMEN ANTHOLOGY (Maiden edition), which will be released June 30, 2012, and ten of her poems have been selected for publication in Indian Literature , Sahitya Academy , New Delhi , September 2012.


Wednesday, July 4, 2012

A Poem by Sherry Steiner

It may rain,
It may rain.
Hook, line and sinker…
Within a stone's throw
he said he would go.
O, late in the day
yes, it is tough going -
O, half-way
every quarter hour on the
quarter hour -
it is you move…
Is service included?
Without batting an eye
to play it close to the vest
he just missed falling.
To gather oneself together
to put one's cards
on the table…
I should like
to have at one's fingertips
eighty francs.
Yes.
It is noon that the heat is the strongest…
Do you know me by name?



Sherry Steiner lives in Housatonic MA. For more info: www.sherrysteiner.com

Monday, July 2, 2012

A Poem by David S. Pointer

My Middle Ages History

My love is persona
Non grata. My dog-eared
Valentines from first
Grade have been ex-
Communicated by Cupid’s
Official court. The broad-
Barbed head of my arrows
Whistle and whirl multiple
Mach speed into new tactical
Theories through Robin Hood’s
Hollywood Forest. At the heart’s
Intermission, I go door to door
Selling sixteenth century war
Hammers at discount prices.
Cheerleaders have been known
To launder the school principal’s
Mistress money in order to
Purchase them for self-protection.
Early examples of my affection
Were spanned by hand. The
Eternal smile, I once wore was
Rack and pinioned into place
So that I could have promises
Accurate at over 400 yards. The
Precursor to my initial despair
Over an unforeseen breakup
Was inlaid with sheets of emerald
And gold, and equipped with a
Double string for propelling dog
Bones, driveway stones, or
Whatever I had on hand. Best
Of all, if I am lying streyght,
Heavy, strong with a good long
Grained slightly tapered love it
Means neither sharp strynge nor
Absence of a shooting glove
Will pull me back from loving
                     you!



David S. Pointer was the son of a piano playing bank robber who died when David was three years old. David has somehow managed to contribute more than his fair share to a lifetime of failed relationships.