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
I’d like a Sunday
like a Mary Oliver
poem, with a few
perfect words and
lots of white space,
and paper with
a high rag content
and maybe some
righteous soy-based ink.
It would be a leaf
in one of her spare
little collections, with
a fine old lithograph
from the public domain
on the cover,
one that recalled the idyllic
Transcendentalist woods
of Thoreau and Emerson
and John Muir.
I’d like to stare
at the few
perfect words
close up with
my glasses off
and appreciate the clean
edges of the fine
big print and feel
like I’m in church,
the good part, when
the church is empty
and there’s only
silence and the sound
of my own breath.
by Will Walker
Will’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Alabama Literary Review, Bark, Crack the Spine, Forge, Passager, Pennsylvania English, Rougarou, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Slow Trains, Studio One, and Westview. His chapbook, Carrying Water, was published by Pudding House Press, and his full-length collection, Wednesday After Lunch, is a Blue Light Press Book Award Winner (2008). He received a bachelor’s degree in English history and literature from Harvard University, and over the last decade, he has attended numerous writing workshops with Marie Howe, Thea Sullivan, Gail Mazur, Robert Pinsky, Allen Shapiro, and Mark Doty. Will was also an editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and when not putting pen to paper, he enjoys placing bow on string and playing the cello.
October 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Subtle Way
A wave does not regret crashing on the shore
and a lightning bolt does not care
which tree it splits in two,
the same way the river
never notices the hill
it has carried away,
or the fog
the ship it has led
to a rocky grave.
You,
you are a force of nature
that sweeps over me,
that buries me entirely
and like snow piled high
on the empty cabin’s roof,
you don’t even notice me
collapse under your weight.
Mondays
This morning,
a car horn screamed
from the street below.
Standing in my room
wearing a towel
and with a toothbrush in my mouth,
I screamed back.
by John Taylor Pannill
