“Stravinsky in the Shower” By Jonathan K. Rice

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Stravinsky in the Shower
            after The Rite of Spring

I lather my hair
as an old woman 
prophesies
upon the equinox 
of spring. 

Hot water 
pours over me, 
while young 
women dance.

Soap foam
rinses from 
my beard 
and body
down the shower
drain.
Rival tribes divide 
and proceed. 

I turn off the water,
grab a towel.
An elder kisses
the earth.

Pagans dance
as I dry myself.
The sacrifice begins.
My clothes 
are on the bed.

Mystery unfolds
in games and circles.
I dress as a dancer 
is chosen 
and glorified,

entrusted to elders,
dances to death
before I can
put on my shoes.

 

About the Author: Jonathan K. Rice edited Iodine Poetry Journal for seventeen years. He is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Killing Time (2015), Ukulele and Other Poems (2006) and a chapbook, Shooting Pool with a Cellist (2003), all published by Main Street Rag Publishing. He is also a visual artist. His poetry and art have appeared in numerous publications, including Cold Mountain Review, Comstock Review, Diaphanous, Empty Mirror, Gargoyle, Inflectionist Review, Levure Litteraire, The Main Street Rag, Wild Goose Poetry Review and the anthologies, Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race and The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina.

 

More by Jonathan K. Rice

“Springmaid Pier”

“Cards”

“The Delusion of Glass” By Anna Saunders

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The Delusion of Glass

They write of the King who thought he was glass 
but what of the glass who thought it was king? 

We know of Charles V – gone insane
after weeks of combat in the forest, 
felling friends and allies like trees with a wild swing
of axe – afterwards running down the marbled corridors 
screaming then sitting silently, 
without moving, so he won’t shatter.

And other cases, people with 
The Glass Delusion – imagining themselves to be 
translucent forms, 
susceptible to breaking.

Like a piece of glass who imagines itself to be king
or queen.

At first imagine how beautiful –
your translucent glaze refracting light
and all your tempests sealed like storms
in a paperweight, and feeling the rain roll off you 
as if you were rock. 

Yet feeling fragile enough to split into 
at the lightest touch,  
wrapping yourself in blankets so you won’t smash
forbidding anyone to touch you or you will break to shards.

And being so glossy skinned
that a kiss leaves no sensation 
just a mouth mark,  a cloudy cherub bow
like a wax stamp on a sealed letter, that no one 
can ever open or read. 

 

About the Author: Anna Saunders is the author of Communion, (Wild Conversations Press), Struck, (Pindrop Press) Kissing the She Bear, (Wild Conversations Press), Burne Jones and the Fox (Indigo Dreams) and Ghosting for Beginners (Indigo Dreams, Spring 2018). Anna has had poems published in journals and anthologies, which include Ambit, The North, New Walk Magazine, Amaryllis, Iota, Caduceus, Envoi, The Wenlock Anthology, Eyeflash, and The Museum of Light. Anna is the CEO and founder of Cheltenham Poetry Festival. She has been described as ‘a poet who surely can do anything’ by The North and ‘a poet of quite remarkable gifts’ by Bernard O’Donoghue.

 

Image Credit: “Roman glass. Copies of valuable Roman glass” from The Library of Congress

“The Oysters” By Brian Chander Wiora

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The Oysters

The better oysters on this plate are smoked, 
then dried, the abundant bivalves brought
from dugout canoes. We sit by the only window
lessened by blue curtains, never loosened. 

The shadow of the cubicle, you say, 
was too always for you, as if the sun
pushed itself away. On your long walks home, 
you would step through people’s breaths

just to feel the heat. An occasional candle
decorates each table. A small vase contains
a smaller flower, its yellow wilting. 
If only the oysters could shell you inside,

shield you from horse drawn ice plow, 
Hudson Iron, anthracite coal. 
Watch hemlock brick tan into leather, 
quite accidentally, just as it happens. 

This restaurant is crowded, therefore endless. 
Each table is its own bottomless moment.
We speak as though the long ago 
occurred yesterday, as if it became

pregnant with every imagined memory
of us. In May, when the mollusks harvest, 
when we would have cut our own hair 
and revel in its distance. The waves roll over

soil erosion, raw sewage, the resistance
of living from being alive. 
“The ravages of the axe are daily increasing”
said Thomas Cole, but he forgot about how

we open each oyster with our tiny utensils, 
bringing forth a single bite. Hunger is so vigilant. 
Find a bowl that’s not filled up, 
as in this room of which a later room

might be formed, as in a catch of oysters
lost in their own banks, bartered
for trade, their shells carved for knives. 
If we look quickly, they will be moving.

 

About the Author: Brian Chander Wiora teaches poetry at Columbia University, where he is an MFA candidate. His poems have appeared in Rattle, Gulf Stream Magazine, The New Mexico Review, Alexandria Quarterly and other places. Besides poetry, he enjoys listening to classic rock music and performing stand up comedy.

 

Image Credit: Édouard Manet “Oysters” (1862)

Ryan Quinn Flanagan: “Artisanal Birds”

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Artisanal Birds 

Zeddie stood in the middle of the concourse.
Spinning in circles with outstretched arms.
The busy crowds maneuvering to get around him.

Some made faces.
Zeddie did not care to see their faces.
Arching his neck to look skyward at a flock
of artisanal birds just under the glass enclosure.

Suspended by cords that were largely invisible.
Zeddie loved to fly with the birds above the crowds.
They had accepted him as one of their own.
Even though he was not a bird.

Zeddie knew as much.
He figured the birds knew it as well.
But they were gracious in his presence 
and marvelous animals.

When the officers arrived, Zeddie was pulled 
down out of the sky by officer Hablo.
He was glad to see officer Hablo and went 
with him for a ride in his car.

Catching up on all Zeddie had missed 
migrating down south and then 
back again.

Officer Hablo wanted to know about the birds.
Zeddie told him they were marvelous 
animals.

 

About the Author: Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

 

More By Ryan Quinn Flanagan:

“Robbie the Owl”

“He Brought His Canvases Over”

“Before Evening Med Pass”

“It’s a girl I can tell, we’ve had nothing but trouble”

“Why Answers are Never the Answer”

“Double Downriver” By Scott Silsbe

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Double Downriver

I grew up on a dead end in the shadow of a trash dump.
It was not exempt from its own kind of magic though.

The dead end of the street gave way to an open field,
which led to a stand of trees bordering a skinny creek.
Bikes had forged a dirt path from the street to the creek
and there was an old cement culvert and old rope-swing
back among the trees a ways if you knew where to look. 

On most Friday nights, we could all hear this great roar 
of many car engines revving up down at the dragway, 
even though it was a good two miles away from us.

When it would thunderstorm in the middle of the night,
we would wake up in the morning with booming heads,
lightning in our eyes, and all of the streets wiped clean.
The gulls squawking over the bulldozers on the dump.

 

About the Author: Scott Silsbe was born in Detroit. He now lives in Pittsburgh. His poems have been collected in three books—Unattended Fire, The River Underneath the City, and Muskrat Friday Dinner. He is also an assistant editor at Low Ghost Press.

 

Image Credit: Arthur Rothstein “Untitled photo, possibly related to: Children at city dump, Ambridge, Pennsylvania” (1938) from The Library of Congress

Two Prose Poems By Howie Good

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Flying Coffins

My zayde kept begging me not to leave him there. I tried to reassure him, told him there wasn’t always that great a difference between a funeral and a carnival. Even as I spoke, crows were gathering on the headstones, just a few at first, then maybe a couple of dozen. Child, child, the crows cried, you can’t kill what’s already dead. It got me wondering if sunshine was an overrated virtue. I couldn’t decide one way or the other. Since then, where my dog is, that’s where home is, and that’s not bad, that’s about as good as anything.

 

The Deluge

“By three things is the world sustained,” the rabbi said. Then he asked me, in his morbidly conscientious way, to name at least two that laid end to end would stretch from London to Paris, about 300 miles. While I was working out how to respond, the congregation started to yell, “No! No!” as if there needed to be some sort of machine that could detect all things with value that had been taken by the water. It’s why now when my children hear sounds at night, they think the rain is coming back, and even I’m scared to sleep.

 

About the Author: Howie Good is the author of three recent collections, I’m Not a Robot from Tolsun Books, A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel from Analog Submission Press, and The Titanic Sails at Dawn from Alien Buddha Press.

 

More by Howie Good:

“Maiden Voyage”

“Spy Culture”

“The Anxiety of Influence”

 

Image Credit: Alfred Stieglitz “Equivalent, A3 of Series A1″ (1926)  Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program

“I Never Lack Conviction” By John Patrick Robbins

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             I Never Lack Conviction

Maybe it’s just me and the page from here on out.

A loveless relationship, I understand and have been well groomed for over the years.

I cannot linger for a dim light and a setting sun pass all the same.

And dreaming of empty promises will only turn the young heart to a bitter soul.

I won’t bleed for tomorrow for tomorrow is uncertain at best.

Toast the demons that chase you to the grave.
And invite all the wrong ones in.

Its last call and I’m taking requests.

 

About the Author: John Patrick Robbins is the editor of the Rye Whiskey Review and Under The Bleachers. He is also the author of Smoking At The Gas Pumps from Soma Publishing and Sex Drugs & Poetry from Whiskey City Press. His work has been published in The San Pedro River Review, The Mojave River Review, Ariel Chart, Punk Noir Magazine,  Red Fez, Blognostics, Piker Press, Blue Pepper, Rasputin A Poetry Thread, Beatnik Cowboy, and Fixator Press. His work is always unfiltered.

 

Image Credit: “Still Life With A Skull And A Writing Quill” Pieter Claesz (1628) image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Open Access program. 

“Are Your Emotions More or Less Intense?” By Ace Boggess

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“Are Your Emotions More or Less Intense?”
                                    [rehab workbook]

I went to a psychic, & she told me I have an old soul,
says the Starbucks barista who resembles Cameron
Diaz, who’ll never be an old soul because she’s caught on film,

childlike. I want to reply with a trite line,
but what comes out is Thanks for the latte,
my thoughts too cluttered for quantum entanglements &

small talk. At eight, I was old, my eyes calculating
trajectories of escape, scanning my slightly-
feminine watch to figure out how long I had to wait.

My brain made other plans rather than commit
to now. Mind-weary, head-worn, terrified—
back then. Emotions stop aging for an addict,

according to the texts, as long as drugs
maintain their grip: if true, I’m in my twenties—
anxious, desperate for attention, happy for strange words

from the woman who makes hot drinks, despite
how I answer: hesitant, uncertain, my hand reaching
for the steel grip of the door more than half a room away.

 

 

About the Author: Ace Boggess is author of four books of poetry, most recently I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So (Unsolicited Press, 2018). His writing appears in Notre Dame Review, Rhino, North Dakota Quarterly, Rattle, and many other journals. He received a fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and spent five years in a West Virginia prison. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

 

More By Ace Boggess:

“Why Did You Try to Sober Up?”

 

Image Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: “Marble Bust of a Youth” (140 AD)

“Aubrie” By Cord Moreski

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.

Aubrie
for Andrew Moreski  

My parents had just killed their bedroom lights
when I decided to sit on the porch after supper
listening to Let It Be by The Replacements
and sipping on Fat Tire in a broken beach chair.
It was September and all that was left
in this shore town were locals
and the subtle hints of autumn in the ocean air.
That was when my little brother Andy came out
of the house and introduced me to Aubrie.

He told me as he took a seat that he met her
when he was six years old. Andy snuck
into our older sister’s bedroom
and saw Aubrie’s reflection in posters
of Ginger Spice and Belinda Carlisle,
in palettes of eye shadow and lipstick,
and in the array of powder brushes and bags
scattered like treasure along our sister’s vanity.

They continued to talk in high school.
He wrote love poems for her
during eighth-period composition class
repeating the mantra LOVE HAS NO IDENTITY!  

Then they moved to Astoria together
after college. She told him to grow his hair
past his ears and down his shoulders
to drown out the sound of gossip
that would be about him, to paint
his fingernails blacker than the looks
he would receive, to wear
his thrift store dresses and stilettos
better than any woman he would ever know.

“One day,” Andy told me as we clinked
our beers together, “I’m going to introduce her
to Mom and Dad. But that’s whenever she’s ready.”


.

About the Author: Cord Moreski is a writer from New Jersey. His work has been previously featured in Silver Birch Press, The Pangolin Review, Philosophical Idiot, The Rye Whiskey Review, In Between Hangovers, and several other publications. He is the author of the chapbook Shaking Hands with Time (Indigent Press, 2018) and is currently working on his first full length (2020). You can follow Cord here: https://www.cordmoreski.com

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Image Credit: Heinrich Kühn “Brother and Sister” (1906) Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

“A Man, His Family Killed by the War, Returns to Aleppo” By Steven Croft

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Embed from Getty Images

 

 

A Man, His Family Killed by the War,
Returns to Aleppo

In mornings I am despair.  I rise
and walk out to the balcony, its ruined
wall missing like my life, like townspeople
buried in the city’s uncleared debris.
Thanks be to Allah the days send no bombs
now.  But at night they still wake me sweating
and screaming into the sudden quiet
for the dead I’ve abandoned again
and again.

In mornings my neighbor’s daughter still
misses her leg.  “Every time I give her a doll,
she cuts off its leg,” her mother says.

In mornings, below me, younger men rebuild
the insides of houses, clear the street’s rubble
for cars while motorcycles weave through them.
Below me, I smell bread baking, hear laughter,
like an unknown language, its beauty alien
to my life, to my ear, its sound impossible
like my wife has come calling
my name.

.
About the Author: Steven Croft is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Coastal Scenes (2002) and Moment and Time (2015), both published by The Saltmarsh Press. He has published poems recently in Politics/Letters Live and Sky Island Journal. He works for The Marshes of Glynn Libraries in Brunswick, Georgia.

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Image Credit: Photo courtesy of Getty Images‘ embedded photo program