January 2015 | back-issues, poetry
Jacuzzis are holy.
Garage door openers are holy.
Back-up cameras and recycle bins—all holy.
Putting the red flag up on the mailbox, waving at the elderly
getting my toes wet with dew—holy, holy, holy.
Keeping my eyelids open and trying to sleep like fish,
signing my name with less letters and more scribbles,
counting crows feet, counting yellow toenails,
counting haircuts, counting plucked whiskers,
counting constantly.
Bookshelves are holy.
Missing dust covers are holy,
magicians and black and white T.V. shows,
Penn Jillette theories and Andy Griffith justice,
Uncle Walt songs and Ginsberg poems—holy, holy, holy.
Drinking beer before noon, drinking liquor right after,
drinking it warm (or on ice) with a friend (or not).
Waking up drunk, waking up sober,
waking up tired, waking up hungry,
waking—always holy.
Table wine is holy.
Candle sticks are holy,
dishwashers and cloth napkins,
the folk art cricket made from wire and a railroad nail,
rock salt from the salt flats in a salt cellar—holy, holy, holy.
Opening an empty cedar chest to still moths and crumbs,
staring at stretched cobwebs immersed in the sun,
swallowing nests, swallowing nectar,
swallowing chimes, swallowing saliva,
swallows—always holy.
Self-portraits are holy.
Ceramic urns also are holy.
Tape recorders and keyboards,
drawing pads and gold-plated ball-point pens,
calligraphy and stipple—holy, holy, holy.
Unfolding a letter, unfolding a chair, unfolding
into downward dog, from child’s pose, into corpse pose.
Picking apricots, picking green grapes,
picking out a husband, a shower curtain,
selection—always holy.
Twist-off caps, dresser drawers, remote controls,
carpeted stairs, revolving doors, product recalls,
keycodes, passwords,
restaurant reservations,
last-minute invitations,
cell phones, voice recognition,
land minds, and secrets—holy,
holy word, holy water, holy book,
holy soap boxes, bathtubs, soap dishes—holy,
holy drains and draining, empty.
—originally published by Chagrin River Review online journal, Lakeland Community College, Fall 2013. Online.
by Trish Hopkinson
Trish Hopkinson has always loved words—in fact, her mother tells everyone she was born with a pen in her hand. She has two chapbooks Emissions and Pieced Into Treetops and has been published in several anthologies and journals, including The Found Poetry Review, Chagrin River Review, and Reconnaissance Magazine. She is a project manager by profession and resides in Utah with her handsome husband and their two outstanding children. You can follow her poetry adventures at trishhopkinson.com or on her Facebook page.
January 2015 | back-issues, poetry
ju·ve·nes·cence ˌjo͞ovəˈnesəns/noun: juvenescence
The state or period of being young.
Hours unrequited in coils round the orb
Fled skins ride slip shod over freshly mown lawns
A hiccup, a sneeze, a tongue clipped by the shut door
Beyond reach of recovery in the suburban predawn
Bottle fed hours a morning worm tried down throats
Hands and often mouths washed out with soap
Saturday morning, rug burns, quest for the lost remote
Fatherless but not unwilling to cope
Nestling the soft belly asleep in the garden weeds
Sprung from the rain dark soil in beds
Wild and abundant fury of split seeds
To roost and rabble rouse to apprehend
Inspires ancient capillaries to shine out blue
Or purple abloom with new bruises
by Tina Garvin
Tina is currently completing her BFA at the Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago. Her poetry has most recently been published in Blueline Literary Journal and Shoe Music Press.
January 2015 | back-issues, poetry
and the streets are running out
with people and rickshaws, motorbikes (there,
four adults on a single cycle), water buffalo
stomping through traffic,
tilting their chins in response
to horns begging them to move.
The traffic slips ahead,
crawling over itself like snakes in a pit,
falters, stops to ruminate, begins again.
And a child knocks
on the window, shines her red teeth,
seeks money to buy water,
or for the man who owns her.
He’s out there, somewhere. Everything kicks
again, we move through the storm of dust.
A man leaps into a moving bus,
his plastic sandal falls
and tumbles to die upon the street. The bus keeps on,
traffic stops.
another shoe flies
from the bus door, expelled as from a kick,
either angry, resigned, or neither.
by Kevin Eldridge
Kevin recently graduated with an MFA from Indiana University and works as an English and SAT tutor.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
miss xanax
(originally published in The Battered Suitcase Nov. ’08)
She says
“you don’t have to watch”
As she gets things ready
Cellophane wrapper from a cigarette pack
A lighter
A cut straw
The pills
She says
“you don’t have to watch
But I need to do this”
Takes the pills
Places them on the glass top table
Places the cellophane wrapper over them
Slides the lighter in slight crunches
The pale pink pills turn to dust
She says
“you’re not going to cry are you?”
She takes an ID in which she’s smiling
Says she’s an organ donor
But she won’t give me her heart
The card cuts lines
Leaves trails of thin dust behind
Dirty honey hair hangs down to the glass
the straw jerks moving slow then fast
She says
“you’re not going to cry are you?”
I lie to her for the first time
that legendary divorce
(originally published in E2K July 2004)
summer in america
the land of milk and
honey not tonight
I have a headache
and I hate you
and I can’t put it into words
but one small push
like kids on a swing
thinking that they can touch the sky and I
might kill you
for making me forget
what love is
or is supposed to be
or that I even want it
anne frank, homecoming queen
(originally published in Skyline Magazine Winter 06/07)
now that we’re here
in the place we fear the most
lacking the voice
to ever call this home
we’re whispers in the mouth of the door
we hide inside the walls
they’re coming in…
I’ll hold your hand
and the world
the world is a photograph
and the world
the world is under glass
and she knows where nothing is
the broken geometry of her star
and we know where nothing is
it rips the hearts from greeting cards
(we’ll use the words they waste
as long as we have them)
and the world
the world is a photograph
and the world
the world is under glass
we hide inside the walls
they’re coming in…
I’ll hold your hand
we’re butterflies and the door is ajar
louisa
(originally published in The Storyteller Oct/Nov/Dec 2005)
I bet you’re beautiful
before the mirror wakes up
before the sun fills its silver cup
what do you have up your sleeve
besides a bruise?
where would you be if you could choose?
and the hands move
mechanically
to apply make-up and remove sleep
and eyeshadow implies
some light from inside
and something in it’s way
(the days start like cars
in this parking lot life
we cough and crawl off
towards some distant light
and the cold smoke just hangs in the air
daring anyone half awake to attempt to care)
what do you have up your sleeve
but a bruise
baby where would you be if you could choose?
I bet you’re beautiful
before the mirror wakes up
by Joe Quinn
Joe Quinn is a 34 year old American Poet. He has been published 60+ times in over 30 publications around the world. His poetry collections are available to purchase for $10 at lulu.com/spotlight/welcomehomeironlung and he can be followed at @joequinnpoetry on twitter or at facebook.com/joequinnpoetry
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
The Midnight of His Mind
As he speaks to me
Of his troubles,
Someone I know
Stands in a doorway
That connects two
Rooms: the past
And the future.
The past is painful
To look at,
And the future
Seems so
Far away,
But both
Are steeped in
Shadows where
A few lights
Softly flicker
And die away.
Ni Zan’s Remote Streams and Cold Pines
I.
Wandering far
From the city, I
Followed her,
Captivated
By her hips’
Graceful
Movements,
Until she ran
Too far ahead
Of me, for me
To find her
Anywhere.
II.
Instead, I come
To find autumn
Emptiness,
Sparse leaves,
Gently flowing
Streams, the broad
Expanse of the sky
Without clutter,
Calming. I point
To the mountain
In the distance.
I look away
For a moment,
And it’s gone.
The Dead Sparrow Patterns
Down the stairs. Out the door.
Dead sparrow. Time for work.
Back from work. Dead sparrow.
Up the stairs. The day is done.
The blue light of the morning.
On the sidewalk. Dead sparrow.
The red glow of the evening.
Home is near. Dead sparrow.
For days. Still dead. Still there.
The sparrow lies coldly on his side.
I suspect the weather confused him.
Sun one day. Snow the next.
I pity his poor decisions,
So like a person’s.
It makes me think. Of mistakes,
Of patterns of mistakes. In theory,
If one understands the patterns,
One will be able to perceive
The right time: to escape
The patterns. Of mistakes.
by Joshua Paul Bocher
Joshua Paul Bocher’s poetry has appeared in such journals as Illuminations, The Germ, and The East Coast Literary Review. He has degrees in writing and literature from Brown and Harvard. Previously, he lived abroad in Taiwan for two and a half years. Currently, he lives with his wife in Somerville, MA and works for non-profits in the Boston area.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Invisible Creatures
Orange laranjas, seis reais. The afternoon in Copacabana has sunscreen bottles and pharmacies. Near a tree, passengers wait at the bus stop. Secretly, I am naked in Portuguese. After a day at the beach, I drink coffee, and eat cheese buns. There is violence in Brazil, yes, but there is also so much more. Where I live, the snow falls occasionally, and the rain freezes my fingers. In spite of the dead trees, I desire the arrival of the summer, while I have fantasies of walking barefoot on soft sand, intimate with the invisible creatures of the heat. In that same life, I watch soap operas online and miss my family, when shopping in the organic supermarket. The privilege is to wish for tropical fruits while they still last. Hold onto the flavor as though they were pearls, unique and precious.
Latitude
The sun explodes in the canvas
of an unfinished painting,
a muscular entropy of the heart.
The brush is left alone in the dark,
as she lies naked in bed, empty
of imagination.
The latitude of an image
circumscribes the roughness of being.
Hunger for Tropical Things
She wakes up, acorda, with an intense necessity to devour tropical things. “In winter, the search for the sun is insana,” he says, finding it important to explain everything with statistics. “It is the foreigner’s syndrome,” he concludes, the paper in his hands. I don’t understand what you are saying. “If someone likes fruits, it is normal to miss pineapples,” she replies, “simple like that.” I feel much closer to myself when I have this conviction.
by Desirée Jung
Desirée Jung is a Canadian-Brazilian writer. Her work aims to stress the boundaries within languages. Desirée has published translations, fiction and poetry in Exile, The Dirty Goat, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Antagonish Review, The Haro, The Literary Yard, Black Bottom Review, Gravel Magazine, Tree House, Bricolage, Hamilton Stone Review, Ijagun Poetry Journal, Scapegoat Review, Storyacious, Perceptions, Loading Zone, and others. Desirée has participated in several artist residencies, including the Banff Centre, in Canada, and Valparaiso, in Spain. She worked with Canadian poet George McWhirter in her M.F.A in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. Moreover, her research and Ph.D. thesis in Comparative Literature was based in the works of Canadian poet P. K. Page. More information can be found on her website, desireejung.com
