Wednesday, November 20, 2013

A Poem by Donal Mahoney


Study in Fidelity

Breaking news:
Woman in a Cadillac
tries to run over
the husband
she claims is
a serial philanderer
and misses by inches.
She puts the car
in reverse
and roars over
another man
out for a walk
with his mistress.
the man dies
at the scene.
No word on whether
charges will be filed
or whether the widow
will testify on behalf
of the driver.
The women say
they're involved
in a long-term
relationship
both husbands
were aware of.
Details at ten.



Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri.  His poetry and fiction have appeared in a number of print and online publications.

Friday, November 8, 2013

A Poem by Shaquana Adams


Signs
 
You were Chris McCandless, 
but I didn't like the wild.
It's far too unpredictable and consequently,
I've been stranded in rain's unforgiving storm.
But I wanted you, so I went anyway.

You were Jack Sparrow,
Fuck the Black Pearl, 
who knows what you were after...
I took my point hat,
stood by your side,
and drank to the pirates life.

You were Jack from Titanic
A few meetings and you were mine.
But we were from two different worlds...
“Where to miss?”
“To the stars.”
And we sank.


Shaquana Adams is a graduate of Francis Marion University. She has been published in several literary magazines and journals such as The Snow Island Review, The Bicycle Review, Dead Snakes, Twenty Something Press, and The World of Myth. Outside of poetry, she enjoys yoga, crocheting, and reading novels in her spare time

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

A Poem by Dawnell Harrison


Frosty Fingers

Your frosty fingers
on my warm face
reflected fragmented
shadows on my heart's bone.
My cold voice echoed
on heaven's hill as
transparent blue-white
icicles formed on my
back doorstep eaves.




Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 100 magazines and journals including The Endicott Review, The Journal, Fowl Feathered Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Vox Poetica, The Tower Journal, Queen's Quarterly, and many others.  Also, she has had 4 books of poetry published through reputable publishers titled Voyager, The maverick posse, The love death, and The fire behind my eyes.  Furthermore, she possess a BA from The University of Washington.

Monday, November 4, 2013

A Poem by Theresa A. Cancro


Seething Blue

The turquoise of the Mediterranean
never clings to me.
It smiles, disappears
as I plunge hands in
like I plumbed your depths
but saw no reflection there.

Malocchio* watches now, 
unblinking on the side,
as I grip weathered oars.
Uneasy calm, a brusk wave
tosses my open heart,
buffets fishing boats --
black lies stare.
 
 
 
Theresa A. Cancro (Wilmington, Delaware, USA) writes poetry and fiction.  Some of her poetry has been published on online sites, including Three Line Poetry, Dead Snakes and A Handful of Stones. Her haiku has been accepted for publication in the December 2013 issue of A Hundred Gourds.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Two Poems by Dawnell Harrison


Thrashing

I was thrashing
my bones against
your heart in the icy
chill of December as
the white bursts
of snow numbed your
soul solid.
I did not reach out
to your broken hands
that could no longer
hold a thread of my
endangered longing.



Train Wreck

A squall of birds
bent down to see
the wildfire bellowing
near the train wreck
waiting to happen.
Above a blackened sky
I slept with empty dreams
as my mind crashed
against something
not called love.



Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 100 magazines and journals including The Endicott Review, The Journal, Fowl Feathered Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Vox Poetica, The Tower Journal, Queen's Quarterly, and many others.  Also, she has had 4 books of poetry published through reputable publishers titled Voyager, The maverick posse, The love death, and The fire behind my eyes.  Furthermore, she possess a BA from The University of Washington.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

A Poem by Dawnell Harrison


Fallen Away

What was soft inside me
has fallen away -
broken off like an icicle
from back doorstep eaves.
My heart lies within
but bleeds without.
The whispering of the stars
love the sky while the silky moon
bled white bursts of light.


Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 100 magazines and journals including The Endicott Review, The Journal, Fowl Feathered Review, Jellyfish Whispers, The Bitchin' Kitsch, Vox Poetica, The Tower Journal, Queen's Quarterly, and many others.  Also, she has had 4 books of poetry published through reputable publishers titled Voyager, The maverick posse, The love death, and The fire behind my eyes.  Furthermore, she possess a BA from The University of Washington.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Two Poems by Sarah Thursday


Lies To Tell My Body
 
My bones are steel-heavy
as I walk the days with it
Pores on my skin ache
weighted by an iron-core earth
pulling me towards her
Down, she says, lay with me
 
My eyes can't see clear
turn skull-bound, sinking
pregnant with memory
The fibers in my muscles
weep at their loss of it
motion, forward, direction
 
The nuclei in my cells
pull and push against-toward
refusing to agree with you
Everyday, they keep forgetting
why I can't just dial the number
or drive 23 miles northwest
 
My arms know the exit-curves
(like the length of your limbs)
my feet know how many steps
(like the edge of your sheets)
I don't need my eyes to guide me
my hands, they know where
 
But my heart knows to stay
in my honey-thick atmosphere
Lock the windows and doors
breath it in, long breaths
circulating it, the new oxygen
Lie to my body, if need be until
I don't need to remember why
 
 
 
Present Affirmations
 
I am almost ready
to be over this
I am almost ready
to see you clear
that you were never really
good enough for me
I am almost ready
to pick up the pieces
I set aside
connect those dots
to pull the curtains open
to rip off the bed sheets
flip all the light switches
call you on your bullshit
see you small
and entirely pathetic
this lost puppy
is finding a new home
so you can keep that
old bitch who returned
I will not be laying
outside your door
I am almost ready
to tell you I'm too busy
I don't have time for
this fucked up game
and I'm tossing out
all the possible scenarios
of your apology
of your seduction
of your returning
I'm done with it
I'm almost ready
I am.
 
 
 
Sarah Thursday was mostly raised in Long Beach, California.  She teaches 4th and 5th grade, is obsessed with music, and has only recently dove into poetry again. She has forthcoming or has been published in Stylus Magazine, The Long Beach Union (CSULB), The Atticus Review, Eunoia Review, East Jasmine Review, Yonic South, poeticdiversity, and a project called Please Judge: Short Stories Based on the Songs of Roky Erickson. She has also made five chapbooks over the years. Recently, she has become the editor of Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets, almost by accident, but completely on purpose.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Announcing Kind of a Hurricane Press's First Annual Poetry Contest!

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2013 KIND OF A HURRICANE PRESS EDITOR'S CHOICE POETRY AWARD ARE NOW OPEN!

First Place Winner gets $200 (US)  Payable via PayPal

for more details check out the Kind of a Hurricane Press Editor's Choice Poetry Award Site:

Friday, August 23, 2013

A Poem by Les Merton


Yesterday, Today and Last Summer
 
Their argument came out of shadows
so heated it left scorch marks,
notes of pain so well scored, yesterday’s
finale was their swan song.
 
Today, back in out-grown bedrooms,
childhood memorabilia is no consolation.
Once shared music plucks at heart-strings
their song played over and over…
 
last summer, shaded words filtered
the ultraviolet air as they sunbathed.
Long love-ins, tender words enhanced
by their song, in tune, marking time
 
letting their love bring them together.
 
 
 
 
At the age of seventeen, Les Merton was a film extra in Michael Winner’s film The System (USA The Girl Getters), the director advise him that if he wanted to write successfully, he should write about things he knew about and had experienced. Since that time Les Merton has had a lifetime of experiences, many of which provided inspiration for his writing.
 
He has 20 books to his credit and he has won numerous writing awards. His poetry has been published in magazines in the following countries: Algeria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cornwall, Cyprus, Eire, England, Finland, Germany, India, Italy, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, USA. He also has had many poems published online and in anthologies.

During his writing career Les has also appear on: ITV’s That Sunday Night Show, BBC TV Spotlight News, and the following Radio Stations: BBC Radio Bristol, Duchy Hospital Radio, BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Radio 4, Pirate FM, BBC Radio Five Live, Penwith Radio, St Austell Bay Radio, Redruth Community Radio and ABC Radio Canberra, Australia. He enjoys performing and has given readings all over the UK and in Ndola Zambia.
 

 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

A Poem by Lance Sheridan


the visibility of the dance

she peeled back layers of his life and put them
in green jars with tarnished lids


sat them on faded, warped boards with rusted
nails and carpenter ants

left them forgotten on a porch where a broken
kitchen window awaits

a repair, where he once carved her initials in
a dying oak, birds no longer

nest for fear of falling; the corner of wood on
a swing brushes her footprints

in sand and a memory, her laughter painted
flowers and bees in flight

to hives in secret corners of forests; there,
they heard as they made love

warm breeze glided over nakedness and
lust, sun rays pushed aside

leaves to create shadows on moist soil,
her screams echoed

just like her passion for dance, more than
her passion for him

in ballet, in a pirouette, he tried to embrace
was jilted, dragged

himself into a bar and drank her away on
shots and dirty whiskey glasses

half stoned, sat in the back of a bus and
old seats; got off by a river

walked a bulkhead in acid rain and an
unshaven face; one foot

then one foot, into garbage and debris
hanging onto stagnant water

one less breath
one less breath…




Lance Sheridan—
Published writer—Bits and Pieces to Ponder/Self-Help/2002 
Published poet—Poet Interview on November 8, 2012 by a Salisbury University Journalism Major/Salisbury, MD; poem 'Night into Day/Goodnight Till the Morning Sun'/11-12/napalmandnovocain.blogspot; poem 'Night into Day/Goodnight Till the Morning Sun' has been accepted for inclusion in the 2012 Best of Anthology, Storm Cycle
blog—deadheadingpoet.wordpress.com; has received over 75,000 views since June 2012.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Three Poems by Christopher Hivner


One Morning, After it was Over
 
Stop asking me questions,
the lies will float
until dusk,
other worlds in other words.
The sun is shining
but it's still gloomy here,
the sun is shining
through the plastic over the windows
on the hand outstretched
touching the third finger
illuminating the ring.
Stop asking me questions, please,
I'm tired.        
 
 
 
Early Morning Gray
 
Twenty different trips
enclosed in a metal box,
close enough
to smell the soap
in your hair
and to steal a kiss
or a private touch.
Rolling down the highway
through tunnels
of early morning gray,
getting slapped open-handed
by the wind
to keep us awake.
Songs from the radio
play as backdrop
to our silly prattle
of a week alone
amidst 100,000 others
and love
in the time of youth
and revelations.
 
Easing into
the ocean city
with the sun's eyes
just opening,
each time
became rote,
until it
wasn't quite the same.
We talked the talk
and walked
hand in hand
not noticing
the sand shifting
beneath our feet.
 
At first,
it was swimming
in water that felt like a cocoon,
greeting each day
like Centurions,
making love
when the spirit moved
and floating
with the rhythm
of the time and place.
From the start
we suckled
to one another
feeding from
the same breast.
 
The fade began
as we tread
in water that
bit but never
drew blood.
We wouldn't
open our mouths
to talk about it
for fear
of swallowing
ourselves.
So we stayed out
drying up
in the sun,
letting our shades behind
to wander
the boardwalk.
 
Twenty trips
down the coast,
each one
meaning less
than the one before
and we're too lost
to figure out why.
In the end
there were no kisses
stolen or given,
the smell
of your hair
only left me longing
and the songs
on the radio played
to eat up
the empty space
between us.
  
 
 
Another Last Night
  
Drink down
the wine of the day
and let the thickness
coat your tongue,
a jacket for
a better night.
Now the moon
kisses your cheek,
a flirtation,
before dancing commences
along sidewalks
dirty for their art,
around buildings
that try to cut in,
and cross-town traffic
laughing into dangerous curves.
You're drunk
and lost
in a city
of drunks and losers,
trying to stop the sun
from rising
and the day
from calling you home.
Where are my friends
and that last bottle of wine
you wonder into sleep
as the taxi driver
starts your fare.
 
 
 
 
Christopher Hivner lives in Pennsylvania, usually writes while listening to music and enjoys an occasional cigar outside on a star-filled night. He has recently been published in Eye on Life Magazine, Dead Snakes and Illumen. A book of horror short stories, "The Spaces between Your Screams" was published by eTreasures Publishing. You can connect with him here: website, facebook, twitter: @your_screams, Goodreads.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

A Poem by Jon Bennet


The Things
 
Between the two of us
you'd think
we'd leave less behind
but there are baskets
in the hallway
full of  phrases left in their wrapping
suppressed advice
compliments of course.
There was the time
I didn't tell you
that I loved you
and the time you didn't say
“I wish you’d die”
along with the fern and goldfish.
It doesn't matter now
in that hallway
with its
opposing doors
we each took one
and simply
walked away.
 
 
 
 
Jon Bennet has  also been published in Red Fez, Zygote in My Coffee, and others.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Two Poems by A.g. Synclair


I Was Just Thinking
 
it's better to write alone
in a dark room
with a full bottle
and a heavy chest
 
even when it’s all too much
the rain
the dark
the solitary thump of the heart
 
all of that
is better than suffering
her
 
because, clearly
she wanted me
dead
 
 
 
Aftermath
 
sitting all day
in a chair
banging out fragments of myself
the ones lodged in the bones
of a bird

failing victorious
 
 
 
A.g. Synclair is an unapologetic pessimist, rule breaker, and rebel without a clue. When he isn't editing The Montucky Review and serving on the editorial staff of The Bookends Review, he is drinking from glasses that are perpetually half empty and hiding from the sun, which is clearly trying to kill him. Despite being extensively published around the globe, he flies under the radar. Deftly.


 

Friday, July 19, 2013

Three Poems by M.J. Iuppa


Feeding a Fire
 
Wedged beneath a pile of papers
waiting to be burned, I
find rumpled sheet music
 
Words pressed against notes,
a tune like the sudden sweep
of snow in late March air . . .
 
A perfection of our labor that’s
difficult to give up, like this song’s
devotion as if anyone pays attention
 
Still nothing is the same and this
song’s refrain, wistful at best, not
love or blues, half-truths said
 
in low light, waiting for embers
to shift in the stove . . . 
I close my eyes, knowing
 
I will sing this without you
 
 
 
 
Household
 
Where can a blind man live
who is pursued by bees?
 
                      ~Neruda
 
Uncomfortable skin, incessant
itch to jump, to twitch, to hum
 
constant noise that gives him
hives–makes madness come
 
alive– a thousand wings fanning
figure eights until cells ignite
 
into fiery flight that burns
his eyes–tearless cries be-
 
come disguise, dodging
all that occupies his mind.
 
 
 
 
Temptation in Standard Time
 
A fish hook moon skims
a dark city sky, promising
to return morning
without being caught
 
in a corridor between lives,
tempting those who love
the stolen split-second kiss
to linger in the doorway
that’s damp with fallen leaves–
hard to forget, but
can’t be remembered
 
Who were you, really?
 
And I, in spite of
purity, claimed your
unexpected embrace
long enough
to let it go
 
 
 
 
M. J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.  Her most recent poems have appeared in Poetry East, The Chariton Review, Tar River Poetry, Blueline, The Prose Poem Project, and The Centrifugal Eye, among other publications.  Her most recent poetry chapbook is As the Crow Flies (Foothills Publishing, 2008), and her second full-length collection is Within Reach (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010).  Between Worlds, a prose chapbook, was published by Foothills Publishing in May 2013.  She is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor program at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

A Poem by J.K. Durick


Custody

I’m not talking about the dog -- he stays,
Fetch was never my game anyway, but
I’m talking about the few dishes I brought,
Those things my grandmother left and
I brought along to play house, to play home,
There are the bookcases that fit the shape
Of rooms so well but are empty without me,
And there are a few other details I left:
My hours, my efforts, the things I thought,
And the things I assumed. I want my ghosts
To come along, to pack up all they can and
Follow me out to the car, down the road,
Follow me like the children we never had,
Children who now choose to live with me.
 
 
 
J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Decades Review, Jellyfish Whispers, Third Wednesday, and Up the River.

Monday, July 1, 2013

A Poem by Kelley White


Too late
 
you call
you remember a body
twenty-two years old
no visible scars
 
and I’d give you my heart
but in lives in a sausage
stuffed with anger and sewn
with despair
 
like a pit bull pup
it nuzzles and wheezes
for a hand on the muzzle
a pat on the back
 
you see
its hope-ugly visage
suspect the danger:
this one

might bite back
 
 
 
Pediatrician Kelley White worked in inner-city Philadelphia and now works in rural New Hampshire. Her poems have appeared in journals including Exquisite Corpse, Rattle and JAMA.  Her most recent books are TOXIC ENVIRONMENT (Boston Poet Press) and TWO BIRDS IN FLAME (Beech River Books.) She received a 2008 PCA grant.
 

Saturday, June 29, 2013

A Poem by Abra Bertman


Smoke
 
When I gave you up I missed your fingers
like unfiltered cigarettes, brown as bourbon, long
as trains headed out of town. I kept seeing them move
 
the way some hammers move. Every day I reeled
my thoughts from the telephone, the cool receiver,
craving the short beige sounds you’d offer
before you pressed end. Air felt blank, just breathing.
 
I’m troubled by your music and the taste
of reverie, the hourly crackle of wild fire. Smoke
drifts west over miles of scorched sand.
 
 
 
Abra Bertman is a poet who lives and works in Amsterdam. Recent poems have appeared in Other Poetry, About Place Journal and the Midwest Literary Magazine. The poem "When the World Comes Home," the product of a long-standing collaboration with jazz pianist Franz VonChossy, appears in the liner notes of the CD of the same name.

Friday, June 7, 2013

A Poem by Shaquana Adams


To Cheating Ex Boyfriends
(inspired by Lucille Clifton)
 
I wish them endless nights of sadness and confusion,
I wish them the swirling internal pain of being cheated on,
I wish them bad headaches and loss of appetite,
I wish them a false hope of getting over it,
I wish them a weep-a-thon on a Monday and the last tissue.
 
Let them believe that they were right so that when they
have daughters, they will know that they were wrong.
 
 
 
Shaquana Adams is a graduate of Francis Marion University. Adams has been writing poetry since she was 12. She enjoys reading, crocheting, and yoga in her spare time.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

A Poem by J.K. Durick


Moving Day
 
The movers will be here by eight
All the boxes are packed and piled
The furniture marked and labeled
Some go along, some into storage.
 
Now we walk through once more
Bedrooms, living room, and study
As if we might miss something
As if we had more to add to all this.
 
We have become these checklists
Inventories we can easily check off
This measure and weight of years
All that is left, worth bringing along.
 
There are times when things we have
Become more than possessions or symbols
They can speak to us, make claims on us
Become family pets, become our children.
 
We can call this, label it what we want
An end to one chapter and then the next
A door closing and a new one opening
A stage, a phase, just another passage.
 
We’ll leave behind the sounds we made
Our voices, the things we once said
The stories we told and lived through
Our familiar legends, our mythology.
 
And, we’ll leave behind all our ghosts
The ones that shadowed us, follow us
Even now through these empty rooms
Begging to go along or for us to stay.
 
The movers, we know, will be here soon
A truck on the lawn, a ramp up to the door
Emptying our house, rescuing what they can
As we look on and begin to understand.
 
 
 
J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Northern New England Review, Napalm and Novocaine, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Two Poems by Martin Willitts, Jr.


Not Seeing Eye-to-Eye
  
Not seeing eye-to-eye, avoiding seeing
what is in front of us, when all we could see
was clear sailing. There is no boat in this story.
No oars to cling to. Only the drowining.
 
Not looking into the other’s eyes is a sign
of avoiding the obvious. What were we supposed to see?
The sign should have said: Danger ahead.
But we cruised as if the roads were speedways.
 
We ignored the turnoffs. We thought we knew
where we were going, and it did not matter
how we get there. We forgot to go together.
We could blame the maps. I could.
 
Now you are somewhere else. I got lost on my own.
I found another traveling companion.
When I look into her eyes, you are not hitchhiking.
 
 
 
After
   
No matter, burning darkness
or lack of indelible light, there are
always two kinds of unkind deaths.
Neither is silent restlessness,
nor noisy orchids.
 
This is echo and lack of echo,
guilty annexes
where heart refuses to listen.
Two dearth-whispers
from summoning.
 
Disorderly angels follow
banging soft gongs. What remains
is silence, sweltering silence.
Burnt once by loss, seared twice
by memory, flailed skin.
What goes away returns
lost in ruins.
 
 
 
Martin Willitts Jr has four full length poetry collections and over 20 chapbooks including recently, “Late All Night Sessions with Charlie “the Bird” Parker and the Members of Birdland, in Take-Three” (A Kind Of a Hurricane Press, ebook, 2013). His forthcoming poetry books include “Waiting For The Day To Open Its Wings” (UNBOUND Content, 2013), “Art Is the Impression of an Artist” (Edgar and Lenore's Publishing House, 2013), “City Of Tents” (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2013), "A Is for Aorta" (Seven Circles Press, e-book, 2013), "Swimming In the Ladle of Stars" (Kattywompus Press, 2013),  and he is the winner of the inaugural Wild Earth Poetry Contest for his full length collection “Searching For What Is Not There” (Hiraeth Press, 2013).

Friday, May 24, 2013

A Poem by Rick Hartwell


After the Talk
 
Morning’s first whiff, sun burnt pine,
Nostrils spiced and alert,
Better than fresh baked rolls.
 
Splashed water from pond fountain,
Syncopated waterfall backbeat,
Ears pricked to goldfish music.
 
Early breeze dislodges hair strands,
Whisked arm hairs tickle, tingle,
Water blowback chills her face.
 
Plucked and sucked dandelion stem,
Transports several decades,
Sweet as recalled childhood.
 
Mourning doves atop the ivied wall,
A third in the pine, shunned,
Sad laments from an empty bed.
 
 
 
Rick Hartwell is a retired middle school (remember the hormonally-challenged?) English teacher living in Moreno Valley, California. He believes in the succinct, that the small becomes large; and, like the Transcendentalists and William Blake, that the instant contains eternity. Given his “druthers,” if he’s not writing, Rick would rather still be tailing plywood in a mill in Oregon. He can be reached at rdhartwell@gmail.com.