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Farmington
Triptych, July 2006
by Helen R. Peterson
From the Inside
waves crash clams
dig escaping
(relief comes deep)
turning burying into you
deeper
as wave upon wave crashes into me
there is no give in your shoulder
there is no escape
French dressing and honey packets
hoarded for the days the tea
came black, the salad dry.
Inside Out
magnesium dreams:
the luxury of ice chips
privilege of showers
flying in airplanes
(instead of watching them
through double
paned glass)
the feel of unfiltered
oxygen
the sound of trees.
On the Outside
the brain alone is awake.
it panics, tells stomach to vomit.
but stomach sleeps on.
in the center a tree grows
open only to the sky.
i lie beneath as honey
packets burst within my bag.
Anatomy
Lesson
by Helen R. Peterson
attempts
to br-
eak
the heart—fruitless
as the knife
thrown
into the swamp after
the sacrifice
useless as a room
with 3 walls
the heart is empty
but for
the unfeeling blood
carrying pain
from one hand
to
the other…
The
Catch off the Fisher’s Island Ferry
by Helen R. Peterson
7 AM:
Before the boat can dock businessmen,
Blueteeth gnawing their ears,
dark suits fresh pressed by Maria
stand at the gate, ready to charge,
their minds beating their bodies
to the offices waiting on solid ground.
12 Noon:
Mothers needing a roast—
perhaps some fresh strawberries—
from Super Stop & Shop roll off
in late models SUVs stopping
to drop off the overdue library book
Maria found behind the couch.
4 PM:
Children in matching royal blue blazers
march off in pairs, anxious for Maria’s
warm carob chip cookies and soy milk.
They mutter under the weight of clarinets
and lacrosse sticks towards lined up Volvos
and au pairs crushing out their last Virginia Slims.
9 PM:
Men thick with the dust of million
dollar lawns trudge
down the stairs and up the hill to the Y Knot Café,
the memory of Maria’s smile taking out the trash
still fresh. Cobblestones along Captain’s Walk bark
beneath their boots as red Thermos coolers bounce
against mud-caked thighs.
It's
All Over
by Helen R. Peterson
As they sit at the crossroads of the
buffet tables,
you can see it in the grey hair cascading down her back—
the miles spent bringing peace to children sitting just close enough
to one another to annoy the sanctity of personal space,
now bored with I Spy and the license plate game, their screams like heavy metal
lyrics.
Or in the roadmap of his face hinting
at the years spent
driving over potholes and speed bumps in a vehicle
with no heat, windows sticking in the summertime,
down countless dead ends, never quite getting anywhere.
.
Mama
Hates Rap Music
by Helen R. Peterson
She took to her bed last autumn, damp
cloth
covering her eyes, porcelain cups of weak
chamomile tea growing cold.
Since the day uniformed officers knocked
on the door, you’d think she’d lost her own soul,
drifting farther and farther away from her boys still living.
So when the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”
comes up on Jim’s mixtape,
his brothers rush to turn the stereo down softly, preserving Mama’s nerves.
They can’t help repeating his rebellion, mourning in their own way,
the cruelty of their mother’s slow reunion with her little soldier leaving
them orphans of the not quite dead.
.
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Fallen
Soldier
by Joseph Lewis
A rifle stuck in the snow
was how we remember him,
sent to the front just out of school,
fighting with others just as young,
now still young after fifty years,
since death preserves like a photo
kept on a mantel by a girlfriend,
wife or mother who wrote a letter
that was sent but never read.
New
Day
by Joseph Lewis
A single bird sings before dawn.
The sun is a white disc between bare branches.
More snow. Rusted iron. A nail lies flat
in the dust of an artificial road.
The cars leave trails of visible fumes,
red lights receding at the corner.
Once more the history of the world
has a human face.
Migration
by Joseph Lewis
Outside the trees are bare
for another winter--
my coffee cup is empty
But the table's full of books,
and in the shelves like sentinels—
but where are the birds?
Migrating south in large formations,
small wings fluttering
across the open sky.
Evergreens
by Joseph Lewis
Green chairs overlook a winter scene:
bare trees loom into a cloudy sky—
one stump is like a broken tooth,
the birdhouse is empty today.
Even the snow is a memory,
and so's the latest holiday.
But it would be nice to see
silver sparklers in the trees,
some tangled wires as filagree
on the tops of the evergreens.
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Actors
by Gerald So
My favorite actor
smiles and shrugs
and says, "Aw, shucks"
before an audience
hoping to have his success.
"We're born actors,
aren't we?
Mimicking our
fathers, mothers,
sisters, brothers—
until they tell us to stop."
And through my television comes
the sound of awe.
For a moment,
for all of us watching,
it seems just that simple.
Then the buzz dies down,
and I try to picture the guy
in Underoos pretending he's
Humphrey Bogart.
"This is me," he says,
and I don't believe him.
Back
on Robin Lane
by Gerald So
Days before her wedding,
Marie drags me along
showing Brian her old haunts.
She slows by the house
she left years ago,
but avoids its windows
as she does my eyes.
A
Poet Dreams
by Gerald
So
hundreds of
unfinished lines,
each one stirring
its own debate.
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Kiss-off
by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I looked away.
My eyes were burning.
I did not want to raise a hand.
My blood raced.
The woman I loved gave her kiss
away. Late at night,
I heard the gossip.
I was another chump
without the right to weep.
I was told stories about her I didn't believe.
Burn
by Luis
Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I throw in
poems
into a
fire pit.
I watch the
bad ones
burn like they
deserve.
The good ones
burn more
slowly and
throw out
sparks. But it
could be
something
different.
Not every
poem
burns or has
magic.
A
Thief in this Place
by Luis
Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I stole nothing.
Whoever claims
I stole something
will hear from me.
I will punch a
hole through the wall
to make those who
accuse me of
stealing feel and
see my power.
I would not be
in this place if
I had just stopped
smoking. You know,
cigarettes stole
my soul. If there
is a thief in
this place, it is
cigarettes. They
control my soul.
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Rootless
Innocence
by Iolanda Scripca
Greenhouses broken forever...
Machines—noisy, controlling
petals fall to the ground
Tears heavy with no thunder
try to recover in an upside down
crystal.
Greenhouses broken forever...
Boy scouts sell roots in front of the
store.
Tourists drive by in soundproof cars
Saddened by the
emptiness of the Californian hills
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5
Minutes at Euabalong West
by Les Wicks
The red soil is an adamant wet,
inexplicable melons tumble across packed-earth road.
A few houses stood back
from this embarrassed desert rail platform.
The whole train has emptied for a break, cigarettes
& digital cameras.
We're touching something but like
always
trapped in timetables of our minds/hearts
we leave before this little place
sinks in enough to stain.
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Smaller
Magic
by David R. Morgan
My home lay in the heart
Of the angled forest,
Far from rhyming pasture.
Honeysuckle swam like a fiery sea,|
Stags dipped their horned heads in welcome
And stayed still for me and silent.
Light as floss I soared through green heaven,
Fast as dappled light
And in the oak cool dark birds fanned my hair.
Now I trace the smaller magic
On your cities edges ,
Counting axe strokes through clouded years.
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Once
were Birds
1967 is not 2007
by Nanette
Rayman Rivera
I.
We were three young birds captive
in a car in the unkempt rain. Sidled
from the sand-witch’s kitchen
where the perilous ocean turns into ticks,
where the sky vanished in its un stable.
The sun opened to shelve itself in
Massapequa
Creek, blind-taut, waves knotted us,
took us in custody. Pathmark frayed through prism
glass. We shouted and shout and shout.
II.
The birds keel sick.
The birds keel in the sick-closet imagining windows shatter, deserting their
frames.
Faces dark jaws we left on the filo-plume tick-
ticking sea. Cracks in the glass we half waited for them
to open on a new world where the arrested would be saved—
a stream of light, uniformed blue-angels mobbing the Chevy, pulling
under arms, wiping brows. We gave up
wishing for powder-downs, and thought of a future—the Great Water Land
where mothers line up and pay, where they’re forced to be moved
from the huge silent children, once were birds.
Life,
Maybe
by Nanette Rayman Rivera
Yesterday, it was a tomorrow
where I meandered through the parking lot. Air
so cold my breath floated before me like jellyfish
on a jamocha brown sea. I roamed and roamed looking
for my bed. For some knick-knack or photo, myself.
Mother, my face is not yours.
I found mine, just today falling from
heaven
in a shower of semitone notes.
When it didn’t matter anymore being mother-
less, the dark sky went under
renovation and the sidewalk went pink with song.
I felt a sound breathing within me
No more the tired-of, the tied-off vein wooing
the brink where I slept. What’s the point when men call
me back, when men call me buttery bougenvillea—that face?
Like variations, like riffs, I turn in
on myself.
All that sky, those cobbled streets, those lonely bodies
Opening up as though they’d always liked me.
Purple
is the Color of Protection
by
Nanette Rayman Rivera
Danger, danger. Open the locked door.
Can’t take my eyes off of you. Can’t take
empty pockets in the daytime, baby. Scattered high
heels and orders of protection rolled back
in her purse, on the bureau, tipping under the wind chime
under cover of his words: Can’t take my eyes off of you.
Fever dreams of yucca and she’s had a small stroke, she’s
on the threshold of clown-blush and siren-purple cleavaged dresses.
Glinting silver heart around her neck, he bought
her a half-life. Moan the chords Can’t take my eyes off of you.
Can’t take the skin on her arms today, she wants the smoke
smelling blankets off of her—hot flashes hum for her missing man.
Sips of water-pasteled cherry soda, oven left on. Slips
of love-notes and lace slips slip sad-eyed under the bed, to keep
purr of sorry man street-dirty in-visible-sleep.
My
Husband's Addicted Spirits
by
Nanette Rayman Rivera
They stand over my bed and seem to tremble
in—
full of secrets and incantation, full of lamentation,
old and weeded and helixed.
There is a weighted breadth, an axis of
sound
geometry to their waiting.
The secret of the spirit—it is in
their smile
in the brake of body—the lying on a shaft—
the stale eyes—the lavender lids—
They begin to birth a vision of death, long thorny photos
of their walk all night the length of alleys
in the continuous series of loops around being.
Wound in all that’s not well, the wound
dragged in on the soles of their shoes, they appear
in burnt lips – in pretty narrow spirals and rose
stem pipes, through the long curves and cones of dawn.
Lady
of the Dunes
by
Nanette Rayman Rivera
The killer has never been found, that’s
true:
her bell-bottoms, white lace top a fade. Hands
static and gone in the mean high water line, or maybe
in her long red hair, those saints of perpetual man-
baiting. Ask me where her radiance goes and I say
with her hands, their beauty falling off to a beam
that satins along the wild-weed dunes. Or lopped
off by the man, that Dali of dark, the slither
in the outline of Race Point Beach who speaks
without spoken to. Of hands that dwell in the space
between sand, the drag of a cigarette not smoked,
in the bandana just stiffening in the wind. Of the mother,
can you imagine, who won’t keep watch
for those disembodied hands, both ethereal
and sexual. Whatever happened here,
the hands insist in silent unison,
she’s no fist to crossbones, just eyes
of palms, mad but not yet vibeless.
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Lady
of Sorrow
by Patrick
Carrington
That first moment I stepped
from the bus at Mazatlan
and saw you as I bent
to the trough to wet my face,
Mexican heat rising from you
like fog, white cotton stuck
to your breasts with sweat
as you dipped your laundry
and wrung it dry, the power
of your beauty and quiet pride
of your place pricked me
like the cactus rose that grew
beside you. Sweet lady
of sorrow, your silent eyes
moved me to touch you.
Your absent whispers asked me
to slide across your skin.
The depth of your waters
defined my first decline
into your brook and flesh,
your soul. You wrapped me
in the voices of your silence
and their quiet screaming, blankets
for the confines of my cave.
The oils of your darkness lit my
way with midnight shining, torches
like those that led the two children
that last night of Las Posadas as we
watched, through the bougainvillea
of your bedroom window, slender
candles follow Mary and Joseph
to the manger and listened, as we
kissed, to the Christ child lulled
to sleep by El Rorro, his cradle
song. I found religion there,
in the gospel of your eyes
and silence, in the tangles
of your hair and river bottom,
those echoes of Mexico that cry
inside me still. I found
god,
in that missing light
that should have glowed from you
that first day in Mazatlan.
Greetings
from Atlantic City
by Patrick Carrington
They salt & peppered my eggs
from a magnet on the fridge, shook
shakers and their tails. Insisted I eat
as they tented my pants. Showgirls
made a tasty backdrop for breakfast. I
don’t know why mother put a postcard
next to my grade-school scribblings
or understand how it rivaled Aunt Esther’s
mass card & grandpa’s sepia ghost. Mom
was pit boss, thought it deserved a place
in the family. So there they were
every morning after she went to work,
next to me & my ancestors, flashing neon
& nylon as I reached for milk. Surrogate
parents, helping me grow in so many ways.
Like wonder bread. Now, I think mom was
just smart, knew I’d imagine dropping dice
for big scores when I felt unlucky, laugh
like a high roller in our 2-room flat. I bet
she even saw me wrapping myself
in flying legs & feathers when homework
had me down. I could always count on her
to hold me. Even when she wasn’t there.
Renaming
the Streets
by
Patrick Carrington
The lanterns of Atlantic horizon know
times are hard tonight. They have
gone soft and filmy like sad eyes.
You light a cigarette and stare off
into the bones of its orbits
as if answers are there. The blurred
edges grow wet. The empathetic
moon casts a copper beam for
the lampkeeper to lean on and cry.
The sea smokes with you, a hazy
unison of brothers grieving a passing,
steam rising off the far ocean waters
as if Europe were in flames again.
This kind of mourning,
socket to socket with the sky,
demands new signs on boulevards,
fresh faces on coins. Names
must be changed when life is this new,
could not be more different if
a president were lost, or a preacher
who changed the world gunned down
in the parking lot of a seedy motel.
You want her remembrance at street
corners,
red lights, in the pockets of strangers.
And you want no witness as you enter
the dark sea, only enlightenment
on which way to go as you swim
and the dawn breaks
over your thoughts and secrets,
back to shore
or east,
to touch those far eyes.
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Rubble
by Michael Estabrook
Hit me today
like a pile of logs
falling off a truck,
that I haven’t seen you for 7 days
and 6 nights, you’ve
been gone from me for 7 long days
and 6 cold nights
and I still have two to go.
Like the rubble of an avalanche
crashing down a mountainside
I still have two more days
and nights to go.
At work today I was so morose,
antsy and impatient, not
fun at all to be around,
feeling so low being home alone
without you. Life is simply
too short to be without you
anymore than is absolutely necessary.
My life without you would be rubble,
plain and simple as that.
Kicking
by Michael Estabrook
Tonight the old house is so quiet,
everything dark and still,
as if I’m entering the valley
of dreams and shadows,
only the grandfather clock ticking time
in the other room and the cadence,
like low tide coming ashore at midnight,
of my wife’s delicate blissful breathing.
As I lie here in the clean sheets
so soothing, I permit the luxurious
sensation to well-up inside of me,
admitting to myself how wondrous life
really is especially now
that the new baby inside
my beautiful daughter is kicking
like crazy to get out
and join the rest of us.
At
Fox's Lobster House overlooking Nubble
Lighthouse
by Michael Estabrook
“That was only the second
lobster roll I’ve ever had
and it was delicious,
cool and tasty and refreshing.
Ever have lobster rolls, Robin?”
My daughter peers at me over her fork.
“No, I don’t like mayonnaise.”
And I’m thinking that she would have liked
the puffy mayonnaise-like clouds
floating against the deep blue sky
over Nubble Lighthouse glistening
like an Edward Hopper painting
in the afternoon sun,
tour bus smoking outside,
cameras clicking,
the gulls gliding overhead
peaceful as crayons.
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Animals
in their Bags
by Andy N
Mickey's got a lion in
his bag,
While Paul's got a elephant
Luke's got a tiger
While Matthew's got a monkey.
David's got a gorilla,
While Peter's got a horse.
Philip's got a Kanagaroo,
While Stephen's got a Dinosaur.
Gavin’s got a Penguin,
While I’ve
I’ve got my sandwiches.
Gone,
Gone, Gone
by Andy N
Somebody else is sitting by your desk,
And switching on your PC.
Somebody else comes through your door
And frowns when you used to smile.
Somebody else with a purple pinstriped suit
Instead of your long black skirt.
Somebody who smiles nervously
Instead of your loud good morning.
Somebody who drinks coffee
Instead of Lemon Tea
And somebody who treats work like a hotel
And never remembers to switch off their PC
Perfect
Place
by Andy N
I don't want to wake you
when you're sleeping so quiet
on my shoulder.
I don't want to brush your
hair back down from your face
or turn down the stereo.
I don't want to sing in
the rain nor do I want
to sail away into the sunset.
I don't want to close the curtains
and shut out the moon
shining down on us
like we are in the spotlight
of some imaginary film.
I want to spend
this moment
alone in thought.
I want to listen
to the cars parking
in the distance.
I want to listen
to the wind
brush against the trees
almost like
it was somebody
gently snoozing.
But most of all
I don't want to wake you
when you're sleeping so quiet
on my shoulder.
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Where
is Everybody
by Stanley M Noah
time & place
perceptions & lost
aunts uncles
& cousins too
friends
events
mothers fathers
sisters brothers
& movie stars soon disappearing
comings
goings
burning maps
passing
lovers lovers
like invisible ink
vanishing
landscapes
& you
& towns too
& one day
I looked around
like waking up
from a serene dream
& asked
where is everybody!
Quick
Burn
by Stanley M Noah
An old brittle farm house seen
vacant for ages, I surmised 1930ish.
Just the thin walls remain like a
fossilized birch tree, bent toward
the pink and pale landscape. But
more-like the color of red death, or
a Paul Gauguin painting hanging in
the Louvre. And with me, we walked
in (watch your step, he said). The
windows appeared as hollow gray eyes
and near by was a table and an opened
book, pages turning softly caused by
a breeze. We looked at each other
and imagined like a couple of stupid
teenagers that this would make for a
quick burn: the rising bleak smoke,
and Van Gogh's falling yellow sun.
We thought about forgotten and lost
spirits rushing about in the blazing
wind and how things go disappearing.
But then, you know the past is never
the past: not really.
the
distance of gravity
by Stanley M Noah
after work everyday
two old women
wearing tennis shoes
would hang outside
the liquor store
waiting for their bus—
these smiling faces
in tennis shoes
were seen diving
hard onto the concrete
the day gun shots
came flying from
inside the store,
making it the high point
of their dull lives—
and like urban birds
they painfully learned
the distance of gravity
Child
Rearing
by Laurel Lamperd
The baby awoke
all snuffy and puffy-eyed
rattling the bars of the cot
pleading to get into bed
with me.
Finally we slept.
At five-thirty
the toddler awoke
ready to begin the day.
Creeping out of bed
afraid of waking the baby
grabbing a dressing gown
and fur-lined boots
I tiptoe into the toddler's room
holding my finger to my lips
for silence.
The toddler laughed
and called my name.
Mummy.
A putting on of jumpers
and socks and slippers
on plump little feet
I carry her against my breast
her little body
like a warm sausage
We stood on the verandah
and watched the sun
a glow in the east
signaling
it was about to rise
over the edge of our world.
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me!
Me! me!
by Scott Malby
Because life smells of sea breeze and junk
jewelry.
Because I'm foolish, in the prime of my
folly.
Because something has changed.
Because no cause was given.
Because I'm bored with my own story.
Sometimes, I feel I'm being folded in
half
more than seven times, trapped like a
hearse
in a tempest of rain. Try not to
understand.
Words not written. Words unspoken.
No kind of starving is the same.
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Return
by Aurora Antonovic
who says you can't go back again…?
home is held
in the hollow
of your shoulder
time rests
in the curve of your back
six weeks of yesteryear,
tenderly packed
in lavender-scented tissue,
is waiting to be unwrapped
and in these days
of time-warped perfection
all will be exactly
as you remember
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Those
who dance to the rhythm of their own music
by Üzeyir Lokman ÇAYCI
Those who nourish themselves on
meats, dairy products and desserts
Cannot estimate you at your fair value.
Even if stone cracked, you cannot make them open
The windows of their farm …
People like you are not included in their center of interest
You do not exist …
Hereafter you must know
That they do not have time to bless you!
Their eyes are always fixed from above you
While they bow
With smiles above their double chins
Before the sovereign...the sultan.
Do you think for an instant that they acknowledge you?
If you ask my opinion on this subject
It is because the ends of their twine
Are in the hands of other people.
Don't take exception to the fact
That they are taken for kings!
Do not wait for them
In the wrong places
Vainly hoping
They will consider you a man …
Even if you write hundreds of letters
To these men of the closed doors
Intending to see or speak to them
You will not receive a single response …
Be wary and attentive;
Above everything
Allow them their haughty airs.
By thinking themselves important
They will look at you scornfully!
They well like fondling
Each others' backs …
It is no longer to the point
To listen to their dialogues "with admiration"
To extol their writings "enthusiastically"
To reward their facts "by clapping" …
Do not waste your time
Or put your attention here …
Think of other things.
French free verse translated into English free verse
by Joneve McCormick
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Heart
of a lusty survivor
by Caitlin Crowley
They were puzzled
and lists poured from their faces
reasoning why and how
but certainly never
who
they pondered the
Stabs in the lungs
And words after the last breath
there seemed to be specialists
in every trade
but try as they might
they couldn't explain
bed sores from a terrible
dream and a soul
that readily would
palpitate
for no one in particular they
dissected
no one in particular thought of
respect
the heart laid on a table
smelling like scent of regret
shook as it undressed its remains
for nothing but one struck—
one embrace and forget
a last minute
love, and a
speechless transplant
the
abstract pelvis
by Caitlin Crowley
You are the flash of sun under my eyelids
A tea light's kiss of flame
I wish my bones could show
you the sky
And each hole show you
the moon
instead of this flesh that
I rot with my own eyes
Rocking back and forth on my heels I see
girls with skintight
faces and no room
to breathe
flowing before me,
I know my eyes
are rolled back
like their heads
eating away at me
eating
burning myself with the
hot tip of
gritting teeth
splitting hairs
shrinking muscles in my
arms, end
this cry of my
stupid ignorant soul
persona
grata paramour
by Caitlin Crowley
As unrequited
wretched people
we
mime each other
sinking and shifting
although I hope
we can disregard a minor schism
I can't stay
away
when I love
each breath
you draw
pensive stares
see you
pulverized and incomplete
with clear-cut affinity
in a lonely
state of
frenzy
a backward
regress to me-
you have a
rogue soul
the ego
of a painted woman
but still you are
my heart's
inamorato
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The
Amateur
by Eric Burke
Coke cans, tea bottles,
a stale muffin to carve up,
napkins, hi-liters, water to spill
and smear—paint I do not have—
only play, and my need
for a chronicler
to make it stick.
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