Two Poems from Your Editor, A.J. Huffman

In Discernible Seclusion

You continue to hurt me.
With the sheer presence
of your [in]consistent absence.
I cannot stand the sight
of your memory.  I long too much
to hold the idea of you[r return].
I blink
and I am shattered again[st
your wall-like silence].  I imagine
your lips moving.  Their intentional
tones, not meant for me.  I look
farther back.  Behind your eyes.
I cannot see myself in their reflection.
And I remember.  You
never chose to let me inside.

Your Penis Made You Do It

You could not control it, you tried, but

it would not listen to reason, drained

all the blood from your head.  You blacked out,

woke with that blonde in your bed, had no idea

where she came from.  You think I should

understand, forgive you for its mistake.

I don’t.  I am not impressed

by you or it.  An erection is not monumental

in my eyes.  I do not mythologize it

the way you do, the way you want me

to.  I have no desire to build a temple around it,

flat out refuse to sacrifice my self

respect in its honor.  You continue

your misogynistic diatribe, hoping

to charm me into swallowing something,

maybe even my pride.  I eventually submit,

fall into resignation, finally accept all you have

to offer is the truth:  you are truly sorry

(though I prefer the term pathetic).  I slam

the door and my mind shut as I leave.  Thoughts

of you echo momentarily before fading

into the forgettable pile of my other past

mistakes.

A.J. Huffman has published seven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses.  She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the winner of the 2012 Promise of Light Haiku Contest.  Her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation.  She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.  www.kindofahurricanepress.com 

A Poem by Nadine Waltman-Harmon

A Matter of Maturity

 

Mama hinted ‘bout salesmen,

     gigolos ‘n foreigners,

     but I was eighteen

     then an’ Mama never expected me

     to leave Washington County.

 

Mama had read ‘bout big

     city life an’ slick-talkin’,

     fast-movin’ city men.

     Maybe my Mama

     had met a few. But if Mama

     had seen that Galla salesman—

     fat, fawnin’ and fortyish—

     she’d have said, “Mercy!

     Lord! Protect my child!”

                                  

If Mama had seen his white Fiat

     and knew about his big

     city life she would

     have prayed harder for her child.

 

I wish Mama had told me there

     could be a no-good man

     who’d smile an’ sweet talk

     a woman while they

     were smilin’ an’ sweet talkin’

     some other women

     whose Mamas had never

     told them that once they got wise

     an’ kicked the bum out

     they’d spend nights wonderin’

     if the phone would ring

     an’ that no-good man

     would be on the line sayin’,

     “I still love you.”

 

It took me a year to see

     that he was a user, a no-good

     man that danced

     with and sweet-talked other women.

                                

He was always wheelin’ an’ dealin’

     an’ tryin’ to get money

     from everybody.  Once,

     he asked a woman,

     who had more money

     than youth, for twenty thousand

     and, within five minutes,

     sweet talked her

     into bringin’ his sistah to America!

                            

I packed his clothes, set

     them in the hall

     and, within the hour,

     he’d sweet-talked some woman

     and had an apartment and a car!

 

That night Mama came to me

     in a dream.  I heard

     my Mama say, “Lord,

     have Mercy on my child.

     That man’s a no-good

     piece of baggage, child,

     driftin’ on your shoreline,

     jus’ usin’ everyone, not sharin’

     real emotion, jes’ steppin’

     on people.  He’s jes’ a no-good

     salesman; a no-good gigolo.

     Forget him, child.”

 

That night I packed my bags

     an’ took off for Oregon

     and rented a flat

     without a telephone

     so I wouldn’t be listenin’

     for its ring and the sound

     of his voice sayin’,

     “I still love you.”

 

 

 

Nadine Waltman-Harmon is a retired teacher (42 years) who grew up in northeastern Oklahoma.  In the l960's she taught African teachers in Tanzania, East Africa Nadine lives in a log house in the  Pacific Northwest with her cat, Mama Chai.

A Poem by Theresa Darling

Another Departure

 

Only a week ago

the ice was melting

I was driving home

 

watching white ground slip

into black – mud everywhere

shining wet, black shimmer of crow

 

in motion and the slapping

sound of wings whipping

my speeding car, windows down

 

on the radio

someone was singing

mournfully long and slow

 

about love and letting go

along the road

dead deer were set free

 

winter – cold lover

holding tightly

forced to let go

 

only a moment

a week ago I thought

we were finally thawing.

 

 

 

Theresa Darling writes, creates pastels, and takes photographs in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania. She lives quietly with her husband, Reg, and two spoiled cats. She is currently working on her first book of poetry, Secrets, Silence & Shadows: An Exploration of Rape & Marriage.

 

 

 

 

A Poem by Ken L. Jones

Upside Down On A Drowsy Afternoon

We kissed beneath a chocolate Ferris wheel

As the sound of strange exotic
Interplanetary musical instruments wafted through the air
Two sets of lips met for the first time
And then the sky exploded
Into a Busby Berkley fever dream
Filtered thought the hot jazz of
The Fleischer Brothers
Riot of colors and starlight
In animated form

All of this beauty is slowly going away

Blown apart like a dandelion
As it meets a lawn mower blade
But remembered like the
Firework stands of the Fourth of July
But its all going fast
And I can only save fragments of it
And how long will that last?

I listen to the wind’s voice

And it sounds like it has had a stroke
And I realize how fast all of this
Can be brought to a halt
I decline in the sky like a bird
Vanishing into transparency
And my last thoughts tell me
Once again that you were
My weakest of moments
That you were like kryptonite to me
But would I do anything different
Funny you should ask
Though the whole thing crucified me
It was a tasty repast
And I deserved much of
What I got but not everything for sure
And what our flesh produced in merging
Brought forth frankincense and myrrh 
I know that you hate and love me too
And in my more pastoral moments
I feel the same about you
You deserve to have someone
More devoted to you than I
Someone who would have built
A whole universe around you
But I’m not that guy
I had things to do
That you never quite understood
And what I’ve left behind
Will last longer than petrified wood
And yet try to ignore it as I might
I remember the night
Oh my dear savior
I remember the night. 

Ken L. Jones has written everything from Donald Duck comic books to dialogue for the Freddy Krueger movies for the past thirty plus years.  In the last three years he has gained great notice for his vast publication of horror poetry which has appeared in many anthology books, blogs, magazines and websites and especially in his first solo book of poetry Bad Harvest and Other Poems.  He is also publishing recently in the many fine anthology poetry books that Kind of a Hurricane Press is putting out.

Two Poems from your Editor, April Salzano

If Love Can Be Put on a Shelf

hatred can line the pantry, spin
around on the lazy Susan like cans
of kidney beans, organ pebbles held
in aluminum captivity, dusty, waiting.
Jealousy can rage in the fridge,
barking at the plastic jug of milk,
that bloated breast of sustenance,
unnecessary, conspiratorial species'
potion that slides down throats
of our young, who believe they cannot
live without it.  Honesty can
be folded with the laundry, washed
clean, erased like a stain on fabric
that hides flaws, covers scars, cracked
open scabs on knees, flaking eczymatic
skin.  Trust can be swept under the rug,
crumbs, bits of bread and other garbage
no one believes in anymore.


It Should Have Been You

with your head under the front wheels
of my jeep instead of an innocent groundhog
who stopped under my vehicle out of fear.

It should have been you behind me as I ran,
mile after mile, going nowhere, getting there
slowly, arthritis wrapping its hand around my joints.

It should have been you sitting in the meeting
where our son's education was kneaded like bread dough,
twisted to fit some model everyone calls What's Best.

It should have been you the last hour of the day, worrying,
and the hour after that, awake in bed, worrying waking up
the next morning and worrying some more.

It should have been you who tucked our boys into bed
and told them why you left, how greener grass
had rooted on the opposite side of the fence.

  

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. She recently finished her first collection of poetry, for which she is seeking a publisher and is working on a memoir on raising a child with autism. Her work has appeared in journals such as Poetry Salzburg, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Montucky Review, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle. The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press. 

Two Poems by Jon Wesick

A Postindustrial Romance

 

…we live in a society that is both competitive and in which we are incessantly evaluated (school, university, performance as writer, poet or businessman or sportsman). The only place where you hope to stop that evaluation is in love.

                                                                                              Eva Illouz

 

 

Donna married my paycheck

on an unseasonably warm autumn day.

Bridesmaids in antebellum gowns fanned themselves

and congratulated her on her good catch.

I still have the postcard she sent

from their honeymoon in New Zealand.

 

I wanted them to be happy.

Even when pricing helium futures

at the zeppelin factory,

I’d set down my slide rule

and imagine her moaning with pleasure,

my paycheck between her thighs.

 

When the downsizing began,

she sat at my paycheck’s bedside

holding its hand     telling it not to give up.

At the funeral pallbearers had to restrain her.

In her grief she began to live for her job

staying at the office long after dark

and subsisting on frozen dinners.

 

To console her I explained that in today’s economy

love depends on the trade balance with China

as well as myriad decisions by executives

in large corporations.     Now she’s dating again.

If you’re interested, forward your resume

along with a copy of your tax return.

 

 

 

Monica Wanted to Be 2-D

 

She was okay as a centerfold.

Then she put on blue eye shadow and heels,

became a Cosmo cover.

 

I wanted to wrap her around books

art, philosophy, anything to add depth

but she became a crayon drawing

of a house and baby

yellow sun

lollipop trees.

 

I folded her into a paper airplane

and launched her into the sky.

She fluttered back as a credit card bill.

 

I took up origami

practiced cranes, butterflies, and elephants.

She countered with liquor ads and romance novels.

 

I thought a Mobius strip would satisfy both of us

but her feminist language critique cut my tongue

when I licked its adhesive edges.

 

Finally, she became a page from The Rules,

slipped under my door,

and skipped

away

pursued by the wind.

 

 

Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, instigator of the San Diego Poetry Un-Slam, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published nearly three hundred poems in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Pearl, and Slipstream. He has also published over seventy short stories. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest.