January 2016 | poetry
They give me no peace,
constantly flying over
at all hours.
Right on schedule,
with the precision
of a quartz timepiece.
The drone unmistakable,
they buzz by,
far too small
and too low
for commercial aircraft,
yet unassuming enough
for covert military intelligence.
Manned or unmanned, it
makes no difference, as
my house sits outside
any published flight plans.
This much I know.
That leaves me
as their sole purpose
for being HERE,
their target.
It leaves me,
also, the only one bothered.
Hell, the only one
to even acknowledge
the strangeness of
their presence.
But like everything else,
what can I do?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
So as always,
I grit my teeth,
force a smile,
and pretend I
don’t notice.
It’s harder than it looks.
by Matthew Armagost
January 2016 | poetry
You said
I could be anything
So I became “Me”
But then
You said
That “Me” was too
Cliché
Predictable
Counterfeit
So I became
A sunflower
stretching with every fiber
of my being
toward the sky
toward the light
But you didn’t like that
You said
I set my sights too high
So I became a tortoise
stagnant
relying on my complacency and
not my accountability
But you quickly grew bored of me
You said
That I took things too slow
So I became a feather
bending and waning
vulnerable to impurities
and
emotional cacophony
lilting.
But then
You said
I was too soft
I traded hats with a thousand strangers
and nothing seemed to fit
your rules
So I became a cardboard box
With my edges fraying
And a sticker marked FRAGILE
Slapped on my left side
You put me in storage
And let me become
Worn
Weathered
Broken
And when you took me out again
My sticker had fallen off
And I wasn’t FRAGILE anymore.
The edges of me started to disintegrate
Until
I was just matter
Even though
all this time I felt like
I Didn’t.
by Piper Wood
January 2016 | poetry
You’re in the pickup with Scotty B and buzzing with anticipation cause you’re about to score and this makes your skin tingle thinking about the rush of dopamine and potential for sudden violence that comes with every deal and to feed the synergy you reach for the volume on the stereo just as the song ends and the void of sound takes you back to the bar
where amid the neon and dinge of a dive turned trendy you caught the lean through the corner of your eye before the kiss between two guys who looked like college kids enjoying a night on-the-slum and unaware of the culture shift when you leave the sandstone and iron of Okie Yuppie U.
Your first instinct was fear so you scanned the bar while telling yourself this is Tulsa and waited for the slur you’ve heard so many times it has no impact anymore and your mind went back to the night you and Scotty B were good and lit and laughing and you placed a hand on the curve of his ribs in a manner that made his spine stiffen as he shrugged away and this instant had you at the brink of fight or flight until Scotty B pretended nothing happened and you let your fists uncurl.
This is Tulsa. And you can’t understand the way things are changing because you know it never will for you with your line of descent traced through generations of Hank and Merle and Cash on vinyl and your father singing Garth’s ode with the bulls and blood and dust and mud and in the silence between songs you turn to Scotty B and twang out the drawl real nice when you tell him used to be they called this shit Horse back in the seventies and that’s the best name for a drug they ever was.
by Geoff Peck
Geoff Peck received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of North Dakota. His fiction and poetry have appeared in over a dozen journals and he has been nominated for Best New American Poets after winning the Academy of American Poets Thomas McGrath Award.
January 2016 | poetry
Observations In Lieu Of An Elegy
Scooter Monzingo is dead.
The weather is crisp, the streets
Are exceptionally clean.
His wife is amazed at how
Natural he looks, the way
His fingers gracefully mesh.
It is six o’clock. In Rome,
In a cheap villa, a young
American housewife is
Seducing a gigolo.
She insists his name is Frank.
What an ugly word! Franck thinks.
It is six o’clock. Demure
Millie Hobbes is pawning her
Gramophone. She has plans, big
Plans. Someday her neighbors will
See her and say, Who would have
Thought it? She can hardly wait.
It is six o’clock. Rainstorms
Lash the coast of Uruguay.
In a crowded marketplace,
A slow-eyed senorita
Has begun to menstruate
For the first time. People stare.
If he were alive today,
Scooter Monzingo would say
4,800 words,
Move 700 muscles,
Eat over 3 pounds of food,
And breathe. Which is average.
The Miracle
Who could ever imagine this breach
Of sun? Not even the priests
Grazed by the moon and eager
To serve could say for sure. Oh,
They fasted, wept, and prayed. With
The passion of despair, they
Brought hundreds to the knife. Lord,
The stench. Baskets stuffed with soft
Steaming entrails. But nowhere
Was an answer to be found.
Encouraged, then, by what they
Could not see, they counted up
Their blessings in disguise. They
Danced, they sang, they fell back on
Tradition and, praising all
Such miracles of mystery,
They blessed the bloody fields.
by Paul Lubenkov
After a lengthy career as an executive with Eastman Kodak and Fuji Photo Film, I have returned full circle to my first post graduate job: College Instructor. Although it is certainly intimidating to return to the classroom, it is incredibly rewarding to be able to give back. Poems recently published and accepted for publication in The Sierra Nevada Review, The Stillwater Review, The Outrider Review, River Poets Journal, Falling Star Magazine, and The Tule Review.
January 2016 | poetry
A morbid fear of guns
whose array of co-morbidities
encompass
suppressed rage
post-traumatic stress disorder
delusional disorder
and panic disorder
this complex specific phobia
and avoidance
displacement
and transference
Or how else do hoplophobiacs
get from point A
to point B
without a gun permit
with a gun
without a firing mechanism
and without bullets
and the hallowed halls of Congress
clogged with lead?
by Patrick Theron Erickson
Patrick, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself, a former shepherd of sheep, a small flock with no sheep dog and no hang-dog expression. Secretariat is his mentor, though he has never been an achiever and has never gained on the competition. He resonates to a friend’s definition of change; though a bit dated with the advent of wi fi, it has the ring of truth to it: change coming at us a lot faster because you can punch a whole lot more, a whole lot faster down digital broadband “glass” fiber than an old copper co-axial landline cable. Of late Patrick’s work has appeared in Poetry Pacific; Red Fez; SubtleTea; The Oddville Press; Literary Juice; Poetry Quarterly; and will appear in the Fall 2015 issue of The Penwood Review.
January 2016 | poetry
In this late-autumn dusk
trees discard their leaves
like August’s junk lottery tickets.
She stands before the pool,
long since drained of water,
arms raised high, toes curled
over the edge of the diving board.
What makes her want to swim now?
Where was she all summer?
The quiet, clockwork stars
spin on their eternal vinyl sphere
as she closes her eyes, bends her knees.
She’s grown fat with sweet wine
she can no longer taste.
Her suit fits like a catcher’s mitt.
Grass grays in patches like stubble
on an old man’s face,
so she looks skyward, heavenward,
and launches herself into frigid night,
into emptiness cold as a new grave.
by James Valvis
James Valvis has placed poems or stories in Arts & Letters, Barrow Street, Ploughshares, River Styx, The Sun, and many others. His poetry was featured in Verse Daily. His fiction was chosen for Sundress Best of the Net. A former US Army soldier, he lives near Seattle.
