Two Poems by Colin Dodds

The Patron Saint of Transitions

The toothless man in a cowboy hat

collects the bottles off the tables.

“I’m tired kids,

I woke up before you were born,” he says.

He’ll tell you about when the year had 360 days.

The bartenders give him soda and quarters

for the pool table.

He gets an ideal spot to wait

for his luck to change.

Scary Silent Prayer

Above us patrons, lost in our devotions

to the blather, the stunt and the oily coast, 

a mood stitches the horizon down.

It is not dramatic, one more failure.

But it takes a thousand failures

to make a person, and a few billion people

to make us feel like this.

And god all muddy, here we are.

“What I do to entertain myself

is just that, what I do.

But all the while,

what I’ve really had in mind was…”

someone croons into the space

between jukebox songs.

Fraud our fodder,

give me something to say

to the man on my left, the woman by the door

and the bartender before me.

Anything except the scary silent prayer

that becomes the floors and doors

of this room.

Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City.  He's the author of several novels, including The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing "something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people."  Dodds' screenplay, Refreshment -- A Tragedy, was named a semi-finalist in 2010 American Zoetrope Contest.  His poetry has appeared in more than ninety publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.  He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, Samantha.

Three poems by Felino A. Soriano

from antiphonies & spectrums


as when this mentions

each curl embeds a signature
erasing prior
           generational fantasies       from
figments and all aspects of
tonal
-imaginary spectrums

these curls are morning (pluralized among momentary resting)
and

inform the early-rising caws of
crows' separating curtain
                                                their wings revealing
splay as art as insignia's
contoured abstraction of sound
and
          rhythm's entrance onto
burgeon's reflectional
persuasion and
                                    realized recollection to                                 commence



Of an evening's version of sound

each aggregated evening
moments climb gates leading
into angled versions of light's
vocal insinuations

with legs of alabaster clarity
voices of gray and dusk's
wandering wardrobe
clothing absence in the
mobility of sound's
always moving reconstructed
rhythms --

these rhythms engage and enthrall and
redefine spontaneity's oval brand of
return's
unsolicited becoming



this corner, then that -- paralleling faces

more than,                       more so than
                              or
         much
forward-finding need to analyze an environment's
enabled tableaus

the faces
find their voices among braids of unsaid
transactions
the shine of tonal jewelry
enlisted onto physiognomy's imaginary
images, such in the facet of spreading jazz and
the wind's vocal cycles
                   onto these bodies and brand of
interactive leanings and prayer of prosaic curving
carving a hopeful mathematics into
equating collocated happenings, these

needed truancies from forming segregated
mobility among concerts of same-style
impersonations

Felino A. Soriano is a member of The Southern Collective Experience.  His poetry finds its foundation in created coocurrences, predicated on his strong connection to various idioms of jazz music.  His poetry appears in various online and print publications, with recent poetry collections including Of these voices (whitesky ebooks, 2013) Pathos|paticular invocation (Fowlpox Press, 2013) Extolment in the praising exhalation of jazz (Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2013) and Hinge Trio (La Alamedo Press, 2012). He lives in California with his wife and family and is the director of supported living and independent living programs providing supports to adults with developmental disabilities.  Links to his published and forthcoming poems, books, interviews, images, etc. can be found at www.felinoasoriano.info. 

Two Poems by Jack T. Marlowe

seize this

 

you have

met the

enemy

and it is

i, sneers

the tin

weather-

cock in

the mirror

 

the epi-

center-

piece

of your

shifting

fault line

 

about to

turn from

kissing

the glass

to licking
ambition's

sputtering

abyss

 

an almost

shameless

graduation

 

but when

tomorrow

brings its

stinging

aftertaste

you will

struggle to

remember

whose ad-

vice it was

to seize

the day

 

you and

your little

fistful of

thorns

 

 

 

my left hand

 

dear parasite

your name

doesn't

answer to

memory  

although

you do

look

familiar

a poor

relation

seen

from a

distance

a near

enemy

my dear

enemy

an unwel-

come

guest

the

clumsy

beast

at the

bar, a

harbin-

ger of

dead

fish, a

hanger-

on, the

hairy

wineskin

tugging

at my

arm, a

jaundiced

paw, a

phalanx

of bitter

bones

playing

at war

numb

from the  

carpal

theater

 

 

 

 

 

Jack T. Marlowe is a gentleman rogue from Dallas, TX.  A writer of poetry and fiction and a veteran of the open mic, his work has appeared in Handful of Dust, Rusty Truck, Bone Orchard Poetry,  Napalm and Novocain, Zombie Logic, Tendril and many other zines (both online and in print). Jack is also the mad editor of Gutter Eloquence Magazine (http://www.guttereloquence.com).

 

 

Two Poems by Sharon Rothenfluch Cooper

Wishes
 

Thoughts about disappointments

rarely run away with purpose.

Wishes are only whims and head

droops in mocking silhouette

formed to placate the moment.
 

There's rhythm in time's passage

that's touched with the barest

of breeze to soothe taut nerves.
 

Lips taste curious excitement

and my strings shake

with calculated risk - desire a magnet.

     I tremble, I want, I need...


 

Sculpted Imagination
 

In that floating moment

before morning

when night turns

from the rising light,

dreams quiver

in a nauseous state.
 

I feel like -

I'm holding my breath,

waiting for tragedy

to bleed me of sap.
 

In the shiver of morning,

daylight knocks

and the dream winks

and closes its eyes

as mine pop open.
 

With throbbing pulse

the suffocating fear

washes away.


 

Sharon Rothenfluch Cooper’s poetry has appeared in numerous International, hard copy and internet magazines.  Her chapbook, ‘Reach Beyond’ was winner of a MAG Press, International Chapbook Competition  and she has two chapbooks, Mood Magic and A Slice of Life published by Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry.  Twenty-three of her poems were presented in the play, ‘Soldier’s Heart’ to Sold Out audiences and recorded on DVD. Her latest published pieces are 'featured' in the Summer issue of Poetry Quarterly and published in the October issue of Flutter.

A Poem by Glenn Lyvers

Kazuya  Yamamoto

 

I

Kazuya  Yamamoto worked

at the sushi bar, cutting perfect

sashimi for the society elites

with their fat wallets and

ultra-gold credit cards.

 

They filed in and out, for 10 years

while he served them with a smile.

 

He seasoned perfect sticky-rice,

and trained others to roll it thrice

into little circles of perfect form

almost too pretty to eat.

 

II

Sally brought her little girl to

eat at the sushi bar. She taught her

to hold the chopsticks just so

and to spit in her napkin

when she didn’t like

the edamame

and kanikama.

 

They came every Tuesday and

Thursday like clockwork toys,

the mother and the girl--smiling

with a barely recognizable konichiwa

before spitting out the nijimasu

in a neat paper napkin for two.

 

III

Kazuya saved the napkins,

in a leaking yellow ball

that sat quietly

on the window ledge.

He worked it with his hands

kneading it just so, before gently

slicing it into perfect circles,

and wrapping it tightly

in a nicely seasoned nori.

 

He served it with a smile,

saying konichiwa imi imishe kuso

and while bowing very low.

 

 

 

Glenn Lyvers is a poet and author living in Virginia Beach, VA. Lyvers is currently the editor of Poetry Quarterly and several lessor known journals. He has won two annual poetry prizes, a Wolfson award in short fiction and is the recipient of several Pushcart Prize nominations. Lyvers most recent book, Burnt Umber, published by MLM is available on Amazon.com until it is sold out. Learn more about Glenn Lyvers by visiting his online blog  www.glennlyvers.com.

Two Poems by Joshua Bocher

Light and Dark

I.

God is a few aimless particles floating
            In a vast emptiness.
Religion is finding meaning in circling
            The emptiness.

II.

If we illumine life with a thousand suns,
Will we not be blinded by our own light?

III.

All religions
Seem to ask:
What doesn’t
Collect dust?

IV.

If I can't rid the world of darkness,
I'd at least like to dispel the endless nights.



Variations

When people die
They don't become angels
— Only flowers.

Joshua Bocher works at public health non-profits in the Boston area.  His poems have appeared in many publications, including Illuminations, Subliminal Interiors, The Germ, The Mind[less] Muse, and Point Mass.  He lives with his wife in Somerville, MA.

A Poem from your Editor April Salzano

Protect Me From This Wind

 

you say, leaning into your wife, her hair

not thick enough to form a shield. Our son is

playing defense again while both sets of his parents

pretend to watch the soccer ball kicked

back and forth across the length of the field.

All shoulders are hunched against autumn

air, prelude to the cold season ahead of us.

My husband, not one for awkward situations,

takes our other child to the swings where they can

both be autistic. You tell me about a five foot snakeskin

in your attic, the mice in your shed, a groundhog

you will need to call pest control to remove

from its hole in your front lawn. I pretend I am

not laughing but coughing as I wonder how

you managed to make it to adulthood, how

you are already nearly bald, if your new wife

has realized yet that you are horrible in bed.

There are things I never thought

I would turn my face against wind to say.

How was your weekend at Daddy’s? to my son

is one, followed by another for the autistic boy:

First see Daddy, then see Mom. Of course I never

could have predicted all done Jim Henson,

but that is another story entirely.

Our triangle becomes uncomfortable

before halftime. I count minutes as I listen

to you telling her stories of your glory

days in sports, tales I have heard

a thousand times before in warmer weather.

 

 

 

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons. She recently finished her first collection of poetry, for which she is seeking a publisher and is working on a memoir on raising a child with autism. Her work has appeared in journals such as Poetry Salzburg, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Montucky Review, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle. The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.