Tag: Poetry

Jenna K Funkhouser: “Persephone”

Posted on by Chase Dimock

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Persephone

and what now / shall I write?

the trees armor against obsession / they are lucid / never
drink anything but the rain / and when the rain sings
to them / in their beds / they call it god /

oh when you came / in a hail of arrows
and leaves / and the wild deer / that night lightning
reversed / swallows went north / fig trees forgot
to worship / the sun /

there were Aprils / shouting your name.

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About the Author: Jenna K Funkhouser is an author and nonprofit communicator living in Portland, Oregon. Her poetry has recently been published by the Oregon Poetry Association, Write Around Portland, and the Catholic Poetry Room, among others; her first book of poetry, Pilgrims I Have Been, was released in October 2020.

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Image Credit: Digitally enhanced image from Flore médicale Paris :Imprimerie de C.L.F. Panckoucke,1833-1835. Public Domain Image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Creative Commons License 2.0.

Dan Overgaard : “Donations”

Posted on by Chase Dimock

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Donations

           for Huan

I’m thinking, as I bag these for Goodwill:

Four sport coats, hardly worn. I never quite
achieved the habitude of wearing them.
As coats they never kept me warm or cool.
They always made me want to shuck them off
as soon as they were on. I couldn’t sit
without some bunching, or some extra flap
that needed constant tending while I talked.
As costumes—I could never do the strut
with quite the right mix of insouciance
and casual, confident authority.
Perhaps my years in other uniforms
had cooked me too far in to act in these.
So, here you go—good luck with them—I hope
the sleeves will let you reach the things you need.

Twenty-some ties. I’m saving my favorites
for—who knows?—statistically, some funerals are
more likely now than weddings, but we’ll see.
The latest science says I could have used
the oxygen their knots had throttled up,
which makes me wonder—but it’s too late now.
Like any other homeless thoroughbreds,
they have the memories of their days of fame—
the compliments they gathered, dancing home.
They all believe they might have one more race,
and want to prove it if you’ll bet on them.

Eleven stalwart shirts. They’re lightly worn
but ready to stand up with dignity,
and should convey the buttoned competence
to nail a clause with some authority
or wrap a deal and walk it through today.
The sleeves are ready to be rolled again.

I list these on the form, but hesitate
to estimate their worth. I wish I could
include the lessons that I learned in them.

Baggy from sitting, squirming marathons,
my trousers feel too worn to be of use.

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About the Author: Dan Overgaard was born and raised in Thailand. He attended Westmont College, dropped out, moved to Seattle, became a transit operator, then managed transit technology projects and programs. He’s now retired and catching up on reading. His poems have appeared in Shark Reef, Willawaw Journal, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Glass Poetry: Poets Resist, The High Window, Canary Lit Mag, Shot Glass Journal, Allegro Poetry, Triggerfish Critical Review and other journals. Read more at: danovergaard.com.

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More by Dan Overgaard:

Drifting Off

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Image Credit: “Men’s fashions, 1896” from The Library of Congress

Steve Brisendine: “Working Out a Splinter at Three O’clock on Good Friday Afternoon”

Posted on by Chase Dimock

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Working Out a Splinter at Three O’clock on Good Friday Afternoon

You can’t go easy, get the big bits out
and call it good –

not if you want it all gone,
not if it’s buried, broken off
deep as the things that prick
at your dreams
when you sleep all the way through Saturday.

You have to keep at it until it all runs clear,
like there’s water in the blood.

Then it’s clean.

Then it’s finished.

There will be a scar.

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About the Author: Steve Brisendine is a writer, poet, occasional artist and recovering journalist living in Mission, Kansas. His poetry appears in the third and most recent volume of the 365 Days Poets anthology and in The Rye Whiskey Review. His first collection of poems, The Words We Do Not Have, is due out in spring 2021 from Spartan Press.

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Image Credit: Fritz Henle “Wood pile at the Orton farm, Marshfield, Vermont” (1942) The Library of Congress

Two Poems by Bill Gainer

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

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Doing Dishes 

She left a kiss
on the edge of
a glass.
I’ll wash that one
last.

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Eating Ribs

Save the bones
pass them down
the babies first
then the dogs
need something
to gnaw on –
keep the teeth
strong.
Learn the taste
of red meat.

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About the Author: Bill Gainer is a storyteller, humorist, an award winning poet, and a maker of mysterious things. He earned his BA from St. Mary’s College and his MPA from the University of San Francisco. He is the publisher of the PEN Award winning R. L. Crow Publications and is the ongoing host of Red Alice’s Poetry Emporium (Grass Valley, CA). Gainer is internationally published in such journals and magazines as: The Huffington Post, Sacramento News and Review, The Oregonian, Sacramento Bee, Chiron Review, Tule Review, Cultural Weekly, The Lummox Press, Poems for All, Red Fez, River Dog Zine #1, Rose of Sharon, and numerous others. His latest book is: “The Mysterious Book of Old Man Poems.” Gainer is known across the country for giving legendary, fun filled performances. Visit him in his books, at his personal appearances, or at his website: billgainer.com.

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Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Paint and Wine Glass” (2021)

 

 

Ilari Pass: “delayed rays of a star”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

Whistler-Nocturne_in_black_and_gold

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delayed rays of a star

starts with a chance meeting—
peek-a-boo says Eve—crooked,

the night brings good counsel
for deception, the stars become

pinholes in the curtain of night,
opening up like a long fall

from the moon, feeling broken when she rises,
she hides behind a terrifying beauty

stares up at the moon, counting her dimples
she sees the beauty of her road curving

through a tranquil copse of Silver birch,
often marked by wild zinnias,

she wants to lie there and play there
and splash there on the purple edge

on the road, however, she
finds a road made straight

of Adam

the moon peers down,
she’s wishes for his hands

not made of light
she is just another, broken woman

standing in the cold
not allowed to play the lead

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About the Author: Ilari Pass holds a BA in English from Guilford College of Greensboro, NC, and an MA in English, with a concentration in literature, from Gardner-Webb University of Boiling Springs, NC. Her work appears, or forthcoming in Brown Sugar Literary, Kissing Dynamite, Unlikely Stories, Rigorous Magazine, Triggerfish Critical Review, RedFez, The Daily Drunk, The American Journal of Poetry, Drunk Monkeys, Free State Review, Oyster River Pages, Common Ground Review, and others.

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Image Credit: James Abbott McNeil Whistler “Nocturne in Black and Gold” (1875)

Jason Baldinger: “let go of atlantis”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

let go of atlantis

jerry believes in ivory soap
he believes in starched collars
his spine is straight
he says all the flying plagues
of florida are near sited
don’t give them room to smell

I missed the manatees
out in some cove near
the launch pad that’s etched
in our consciousness
I see it in the rearview
and I want to write about
shoveling snow as a boy
about dreams exploding
about hot cocoa
and christa mcauliffe

jerry says for fifteen bones
they’ll give me a sea kayak
I can paddle over the surf
to a barrier island all my own

out there cooking hamburger
helper over a pocket rocket
Ill turn back/ahead time
ill forget my couth
and go native

going native is a racist term
meant to minimize
the people who were killed
so this land could be our land
a universe of violence

it seems that every inch
of this land is steeped
in blood, I wonder
if a barrier island
off the coast of the atlantic
may be one of the few places
I can step where that blood
doesn’t well up a hot spring
of unacknowledged history

I’m gonna stay out
an island a mile away from
civilization, the sun paints
the sky every twelve hours
every day the ocean
steps a little higher
when it reaches my neck
Ill know its time
to let go of atlantis

 

 

About the Author: Jason Baldinger is bored with bios. He’s from Pittsburgh and misses roaming around the country writing poems. His newest book is A Threadbare Universe (Kung Fu Treachery Press) with The Afterlife is A Hangover (Stubborn Mule Press) coming soon. His work has been published widely across print journals and online. You can hear him read his work on Bandcamp and on lp’s by the bands The Gotobeds and Theremonster.

 

More Poetry by Jason Baldinger:

This Ghostly Ambience

It was a Golden Time

Beauty is a Rare Thing

 

Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith “Sunrise on a Florida beach ” (2014) The Library of Congress

 

Ivan Jenson: “Last Call”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

Last Call

why didn’t you
say this
when we were
both beautiful
I mean look at us now
our shoes are shinier
than our complexions
and when was the last time
we were complimented
by our own reflections
at this stage we would rather
sleep too damn much
than search the city at night
for a stranger selling
the soft drug called touch
anyway you say
you still know your way
around a midnight mattress
and this time
I won’t mix and match
my feelings
or misplace your
rusty red kiss

 

 

About the Author: Ivan Jenson is a fine artist, novelist and popular contemporary poet who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His artwork was featured in Art in America, Art News, and Interview Magazine and has sold at auction at Christie’s. Ivan was commissioned by Absolut Vodka to make a painting titled Absolut Jenson for the brand’s national ad campaign. His Absolut paintings are in the collection of the Spiritmusuem, the museum of spirits in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenson’s painting of the “Marlboro Man” was collected by the Philip Morris corporation. Ivan was commissioned to paint the final portrait of the late Malcolm Forbes.  Ivan has written two novels, Dead Artist and Seeing Soriah, both of which illustrate the creative and often dramatic lives of artists. Jenson’s poetry is widely published (with over 600 poems published in the US, UK and Europe) in a variety of literary media. A book of Ivan Jenson’s poetry was recently published by Hen House Press titled Media Child and Other Poems, which can be acquired on Amazon. Two novels by Ivan Jenson entitled, Marketing Mia and Erotic Rights have been published hardcover.

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Ivan Jenson’s new psychological thriller novel The Murderess is now available on Amazon for preorder and will be published June, 1, 2021 by Dark Edge Press, UK. Ivan Jenson’s website is: www.IvanJenson.com
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Image Credit: Russell Lee “Truck full of mattresses in front of mattress factory. San Angelo, Texas ” (1939) The Library of Congress

John Dorsey: “The Prettiest Girl at Dirty Frank’s Bar”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

The Prettiest Girl at Dirty Frank’s Bar

helped take the stools down every morning
& wore an eyepatch to keep out sunlight
& bad decisions

she hung art on the walls
just below a faded banner
for budweiser

& she talked about the moon landing
while dancing in a circle
with her arms out
to properly explain
the laws of gravity.

 

 

About the Author: John Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw’s Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016) and Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Press, 2017),Your Daughter’s Country (Blue Horse Press, 2019),Which Way to the River: Selected Poems 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020) and The Prettiest Girl at the Dance (Blue Horse Press, 2020. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize. He was the winner of the 2019 Terri Award given out at the Poetry Rendezvous. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.

 

More By John Dorsey:

Anthony Bourdain Crosses the River of the Dead

Punk Rock at 45

Perpetual Motion

 

Image Credit: John Margolies “Beer sign, Seaside Heights, New Jersey” (1984) The Library of Congress

Ron Riekki: “The Roaring 20’s Are Roaring Already”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

 

The Roaring 20’s Are Roaring Already

& 2019 was 1919 & they were refusing to wear masks
then & they’re refusing to wear masks now & a cousin
who was an alcoholic in high school is an alcoholic in old

age & my limp I had as a kid is a limp I have as an old
man & there is this feeling that nothing changes but then
a Buddhist monk friend, completely committed, shaved

head & unisex kayasa that he says with laughter is, yes,
like wearing a curtain, “but it’s a comfortable curtain”
& he explains everything changes, that impermanence

is at the heart of Buddhism, & that hearts change, pump,
& stop, & decay, & spread out as dust across the world
where we breathe in parts of a million hearts every day.

 

 

About the Author: Ron Riekki’s books include My Ancestors are Reindeer Herders and I Am Melting in Extinction (Apprentice House Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), and U.P. (Ghost Road Press).  Riekki co-edited Undocumented (Michigan State University Press) and The Many Lives of The Evil Dead (McFarland), and edited The Many Lives of It (McFarland), And Here (MSU Press), Here (MSU Press, Independent Publisher Book Award), and The Way North (Wayne State University Press, Michigan Notable Book).  Right now, he’s listening to Elliott Smith’s “Cupid’s Trick.”

 

Image Credit: Russell Patterson “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” Public Domain

Tali Cohen Shabtai: “In the Image of God”

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

 

 

In the Image of God

To whom will you imagine me and compare me to?

“For in his image he
created man.”

As worded,
I am
called a man (Adam in Hebrew)
named after the earth (Adama in Hebrew)
why was I named as a man after the lowest
part of creation?
For that I am flattered. In any case
the sky is not achievable.

And yet at the same time as a man I am
treated upliftingly and exaltedly that the Torah gives
me
for the Creator of the World who chose
me in his image and in this passes over
my futility
in front of God? I relish
ironic statements like this,
but

as long as I don’t know
the sight of God

It does not interest me
that it’s possible to simulate a shape to its creator
like clay in the potter’s hand
and allow me to reflect on
this paradox:

hence, God can
wear my bra
snort a cigarette and confront
the forlorn thoughts that
visit me
in Jerusalem – where
the divine revelation in the world
resides, so to speak.

And if I was created in God’s image,
from here it is possible to compare with the parable
about a craftsman who with does the material
as he pleases,
for which it is called “matter in the hand of the creator”
but should I admire
that I
am in God’s hands like the matter in the hand of the artist?

And more than that, it is said
that I was created in his image.
Of course not.

 

 

About the Author: Tali Cohen Shabtai, is a poet, she was born in Jerusalem, Israel. She began writing poetry at the age of six, Tali’s poems expresses spiritual and physical exile. She is studying her exile and freedom paradox, her cosmopolitan vision is very obvious in her writings. She lived some years in Oslo Norway and in the U.S.A. Tali has written three poetry books: “Purple Diluted in a Black’s Thick”, (bilingual 2007), “Protest” (bilingual 2012) and “Nine Years From You” (2018). By 2021, her fourth book of poetry will be published which will also be published in Norway. Her literary works have been translated and published into many languages as well.

 

Image Credit: Angelo Rizzuto “Unidentified woman and her reflection” (1959) The Library of Congress