July 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Loneliness rests in the nook of Eve’s arm.
It is the crease opposing our elbow,
the indentation which evaporates
before our covered identifiers.
Pupils are cloaked
and uncloaked for amusements sake,
like gigantic
lustrous
holy movie screens;
palettes of projected immortality.
The red velvet curtain ruffles up,
momentarily faking existence
before unfurling
with smooth
graceful
class.
Loneliness is a beauty mark I had removed,
a cyst I nurtured night in and night out.
But early this morning,
beneath the unchanged darkness of dawn,
the two of us reunited.
The unremembered face,
the miserable mug,
the beast I so proudly defeated
cried into clasped hands beside me.
His tears watered the colorless upholstery
as I embraced him with every muscle in my body.
I dug the ends of my fingers into his tender back
and clutched his hollow spine.
For the first time in years
he appeared beautiful.
Forgotten loneliness is a lovely thing
when you’re driving home alone,
surrounded by the unchanged darkness of dawn.
by Cliff Weber
Cliff Weber is 25 years-old and lives in Los Angeles. He has self-published three books, Matzo Ball Soup, Jack Defeats Ron 100-64 and Remain Frantic, all available on lulu.com. His work has appeared in Adbusters, Out of Our, Beatdom, Bartleby Snopes and Burning Word, among others.
July 2012 | back-issues, poetry
A carnal flower grows in my garden,
and each night, like clockwork,
when the sun slumbers, giving way to the Afterdark,
I pick it and settle it in my tweed pocket.
I keep it safe through the darkness,
where I disappear into the shadows,
becoming endlessly elegant.
Sitting in the hush of the violet hour.
by Tate Geborkoff
Tate Geborkoff is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America and has worked as a national playwright and poet for over 12 years. His career started in Denver, Colorado and eventually led him to Chicago where he’s been for the past four years.
July 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Sweat tries to swim upwards through the hairs
of a labourer building the statue of the herald
but fails and falls in the soil sucked up by heat,
Vanishes as a struggling animal in quicksand;
Dreams drain and entity turns into fossils as slippers
walk over it.
His weapons are a chisel and spade;
He lifts them to protest but vacuum wailing in the curves
of his muscles make it fall again on the mummified ground;
just to dig, dig the ground for
the Herald’s statue must stand firm
or his existence will be buried under its
falling weight.
Toils will evaporate with the smile of the moon
The dawn will hear sounds again-
sounds of iron striking against rocks.
The air waits to weave those sounds
and strike a twister with them-
Tall enough for the world to see
bold enough to step over mountains
Clear enough to show the waving hands
begging a day out of slavery.
by Sonnet Mondal
Sonnet Mondal is an award winning bestselling Indian English poet and has authored eight books of poetry. His latest book is Diorama of Three Diaries (Authorspress, New Delhi). Sonnet is the pioneer of the 21 line Fusion Sonnet form of Poetry. At present he is the managing editor of The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, Editor of Best Poems Encyclopedia, Poetry Editor of The Abandoned Towers Magazine and the Sub Secretary General of Poetas Del Mundo.
July 2012 | back-issues, poetry
The Study Of Latin
In Latin Club, we created togas
From bedsheets and translated Cicero,
Tales of the Punic Wars, how Caesar
Conquered all Gaul in three words.
Sang Dies Irae, Dies Ila.
The priest raised the chalice
To the crucifix over the altar
Where Jesus hung in ceaseless agony.
We stood, knelt, genuflected.
We blessed ourselves.
We, the Latin scholars, repeated
The beatitudes. Gloria in Excelsis.
The organ aired its tones
Like holy laundry.
In time the priest was turned around
Like a doll on a pedestal to face the congregation
And speak in their common tongue.
I’ve forgotten almost
All that Latin
Thinking how I could have
Studied Spanish and would now be able
To read Neruda in the original.
The Child Who Ate Words
Words.
Congealed, coruscated, corresponding
To a frozen branch overhanging barb wire
Blistered with teardrops. Or a redtail hawk soaring
Over winter-blasted pastures
Or the old oak flooring
Creaking its hundred year lament.
Vessels of phrases cascading
Like the lower falls of the Yellowstone
Or choked in retention ponds
To invite the drowning child
Or perpendicular as the hickories
Ragged as beggars. Or indiscreet
As a woman in a negligee
Watering the lilies.
Surrounded by taunters,
I licked my ice cream cone
A vocabulary of sweetness.
Acknowledged their cant,
You swallowed the dictionary
Vanilla, vermillion, vanquish,
Venomous, violent, vamoose.
Presentiment, palpable, precocious.
by Joan Colby
Seven books published including The Lonely Hearts Killers, The Atrocity Book, etc. Over 980 poems in publications including Poetry, Atlanta Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, The New York Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Epoch, etc. Two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards (one in 2008) and an IAC Literary Fellowship. Honorable mention in the 2008 James Hearst Poetry Contest—North American Review and the 2009 Editor’s Choice Contest–Margie, and finalist in the 2007 GSU (now New South) Poetry Contest, 2009 Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Prize, 2010 James Hearst Poetry Contest and Ernest J. Poetry Prize Joan Colby lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois with her husband and assorted animals.
July 2012 | back-issues, poetry
Girls in Plum Sweaters
what can girls in plum sweaters
be expected to know of loss
as they pass the shovel among friends
unorated letters on pretty stationary drift
in the wind – as earth hard-hits the coffin
inside sweatered pruning friend on white satin
outside they, fresh as dropped stitches
from a single skein of yarn
creating a forever hole
in matching plum sweaters,
dirt under fingernails
cold wind in their fresh washed hair
Whorled
Here you are from womb whirling to mountaintop majesty
Wandering, wondering, wondrous, laughing, slip-sliding
Infant dimple fingered hold on that slice of eternity
In the years tumble, tempest-joy-uncertain-clear trek
Always in soft certitude of the light of stars – sparkling
With a clear true flame – born under, carried within and
yours to share – from first blink of fathomless eyes
reflecting the mountaintop from where you came, from
where you now stand, all pinpointed celestial eternity behind
ahead and shimmering within you, this day, as each day
forward flooded filled with all – from first drop of sweet milk
to sting of bitter herbs upon the tongue, whirling, floating
aquamarined waters to iced-arctic whitened snowflakes
whirling from infant milestones to the crack of a bat vibrating-
beasts gentle lumbering, emotion-swirl beginnings, incomprehensible
endings rolled in burgeoning intellect -until your own
first shimmering thoughts coalesced writ- read
reflecting something beyond, yet within, familiared comfort-clear,
life-love flowing up each step of whirling, womb-walk,
footfall steadied with each tumbled year, to stand here today
on the mountaintop eyes filled fathomless deep as at that first blink at the
whirling tumbled tempested wonder of it all spread before, around
and within you in timeless kaleidoscopic shifts of endless configuration
Enjoy the journey and the unexpected vision of mountaintops without acme
Revel in strong legs to climb, clear eyes to see, and the wondered whirl writ
in unique imprimatur whorled in your infanted dimpled fingered tip reaching
from then mystic manifestation, whirling through the considered now, into
this mindful moment – breathe the clear cool air of your mountaintop of your
horizonless forever
by Pearl Ketover Prilik
Dr. Pearl Ketover Prilik is a freelance writer/psychoanalyst. She has had three non-fiction books published, posts poetry daily online, and has online publication credits.
July 2012 | back-issues, poetry
I
And as it walks across the land
With bright sparking legs
The lightning leads the thunder
II
The static of lightning
Between two hands
And they cannot touch
A thing
III
The old oak tree still stands
Dark and slightly bent
From the crack of the lightning
IV
The animals know what it means
When the lightning comes
V
He strikes with lightning
Because then there is fear
Without a face
And with force
VI
It waits
Shooting among the clouds
The lightning baits its prey
As a cat
VII
As lightning does
Quick and brilliant
We have come
And we go
by A.M. Kennedy
A.M. Kennedy is a graduate of the University of South Florida. She lives in the perpetual sunshine of Florida where she enjoys writing a range of fiction from dystopian to horror. Occasionally she is aided by her two loveable muts and insidious feline.
