January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
His shrinking humiliation blistered in the sun.
You raise your nose at him
but I’ve seen you,
I’ve seen you digging trough the dumpsters,
hissing at spectators as they laugh at your misfortune.
Lean in close and listen to the clicking
of the kitchen clock. Maddening, isn’t it?
All of your mental calculations are letting you
down, aren’t they?
These are nights of love and laughter
followed by days of unapologetic
loneliness.
You stare at the dirty wine glasses
filling your sink as if you’re the only one
who feels empty on a daily basis.
Cliff Weber is 25 years-old and lives in Los Angeles. He has self-published three books, “Matzo Ball Soup” in 2009, “Jack Defeats Ron 100-64” in 2010 and “Remain Frantic” in 2011. His work has appeared in Adbusters, Out of Our, Burning Word, Bartleby Snopes and Young American Poets, among others. Weber is currently in need of a book publisher.
January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Week or so after Hurricane Hazel,
Me, just out of the Navy, no job.
Mac, one year out of Walter Reed.
My dad (looking out for us) Bunch
Of trees down at Curtis Arboretum,
Township needs help cleaning up.
Couple of axes. hatchet, sharpening
stone, file and coffee thermos.
A two-man bucking saw, Mac and me
We waded into tangled branch mess
Hatchet, axes swing, bite, chips fly
Branches slap — sweat stings eyes
Sun, leaves, sawdust everywhere.
Axe blades sticky, saw teeth clogged,
Sap-stiff gloves, blistered hands
Buck-sawing oak, maple, walnut
Sycamore — some we didn’t know.
Logs piled by road for dump truck
We cashed checks, drank beer.
Papers said the storm killed
Thousands, Haiti to Toronto.
Mac died, Halloween Day 2008.
Hit by northbound car on Rte. 611
Happened fast like Hurricane Hazel.
Mac had his troubles; he was lucky
Got out of this life quick-like
Now, nobody’s on saw’s other end.
Fifty-four years done and gone.
George Fleck is a graduate of Temple University, Philadelphia Pa., and a Korean War Veteran. He has been writing poetry for fourteen years. His work has appeared in Commomweath: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, Penn State Press 2005, Mad Poets Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and online in “Poets Against The War.”
January 2012 | back-issues, poetry
#1
He walks
On the road made of nothingness
Paved with bodies of dead wishes
He walks tacitly
Invisibly
I’m pretending to be a Star
On his sky
To be the Sun and the Moon
He walks
Not looking up…
Marija Stajic is a writer and journalist who has been published by The New Yorker and many other online and print publications, and who has published three books of poetry. She has a B.A. in Linguistics from Faculty of Philosophy, University of Nis (Serbia) and an M.A. in International Journalism from American University.
January 2012 | back-issues, fiction
By Sara Shah
And so She was created from the dust, She who was Beauty, Compassion, and Love. The Creator placed her under the foliage of the dark forest, with an abundance of berries and seeds. She lived, alone.
The Creator viewed her solitary state with sadness and sent beasts of the forest to accompany her. The beasts, although friendly, were not the proper companions to such a creature as She. However, the Creator quickly formed a new thought. The Creator impelled She’s eyes to close, and She’s being to fall into the state of Dream. While She surrendered to this new and peaceful state, the Creator took from her being and created a companion for She. For the Creator, with knowledge of everything in the sphere of all that is and has been, created.
From She, came He.
Slowly She opened her eyes and viewed the new creature beside her. He was so much like her; He did not look like any of the beasts from the depths of the dark forest. He who was Strength, Security, and Companionship, He was hers. She caressed his head and felt only love. He opened his eyes carefully, for the light of the forest was powerful, and his young eyes were not accustomed to such brightness. He looked into She’s eyes deeply and across his lips formed a sign of happiness. She could not help but notice his beauty, so like hers. She took He by the hand and showed him the ways of the dark forest, She fed him berries, She introduced him to the beasts, and She warned him of the forbidden fruit…
October 2011 | back-issues, poetry
Nameless Grave
Demonic fires blaze in the eye of the stone palace,
and me,
I only stand in the dark beneath the sky
that reaches its invisible hands
out towards scores of nameless graves.
For callous politicians,
they are but nameless graves
upon which no one’s tear fell.
They were silently and swiftly buried into the black soil,
without speeches and tears,
without too many imprints
on the black soil.
(They say that everyone’s life is worth attention,
and that the dark truth is that only death equally appreciates each life)
And while they treacherously, silently and swiftly
dug a new nameless grave,
only death was faithfully listening to the crickets
feverishly spluttering away in the dark
to honor the dead poet.
In the hazy grave lies the poet,
like a shadow of many dreams,
and the raindrop,
brought from the honorable mountain
by the honorable wind,
softly and timidly trembles
on the dead poet’s white face,
like an angel’s tear.
And politicians, tycoons, church pontiffs
are sitting in the golden loges now,
ghastly and faithfully acting:
the righteous, the charitable, the Believers,
crying their copper voices
out into Croatian silence,
like a copper bell,
and the dead poet
now waits for one tear
in a nameless grave.
Memories
I am standing in the street of my childhood,
and the blue April sky
rises above me,
glittering like a dreamy eye.
Down here, the wind is marching
behind my dark memories,
tiredly,
but unfaltering,
like a tiller behind his plow.
Tell me, steady wind:
How shall I escape the screams of the past?
For years you’ve been pushing me to all corners of the world,
as I was your unwanted child.
You know, wind,
that with my restless spirit, I belong more to You
than to myself.
From You, I inherited the yearning
to travel the world and seek:
the Morning in a golden cradle,
the Day in an angel’s embrace,
the Night in a bloody dress,
and midnight in black,
that preys on lust
like death preys on life.
I am standing in the street of my childhood,
next to the same window
from which I used to gaze at you, wind,
during my childhood,
and dream of the day
when I would fly on Your soft, sweet back
to a better world,
far away from poverty;
the flies captured in the spider’s web,
the miserable cries of worms
eternally crawling beneath the feet of soulless masters,
far away from the grass
and the tear-swept flowers.
I am standing next to the window
in the street of my childhood,
as if standing next to a bloody cradle,
and the memories,
my ashamed children,
cry out into this April night
with their silent screams,
reaching their invisible hands
out to me.
And I,
driven by the gales,
I am rolling across the world,
like a raindrop
looking for its grave,
in the cracks of the arid crust
of the betrayed earth.
Walter William Safar was born on August 6th 1958. He is the author of a number of a significant number of prose works and novels, including “Leaden fog”, “Chastity on sale”, “In the falmes of passion”, “The price of life”, “Above the clouds”, “The infernal circle”, “The scream”, “The negotiator”, “Queen Elizabeth II”, as well as a book of poems, titled “The angel and the demon”.
