AdelaideLiterary Magazine No.17, October 2018

THE WINTER ALLIANCE ANOTHER STYLE OF BLUE

Between the line of industry and residence, Henna hair, a burning Lucky Strike,
bus lights turn the dark lane, rescue dog in her bag,
a wind-kicked can rolls and rattles. she walks bright into the bar,
Luminous behind guard dog fences, gestures with smile and sunglasses,
the wall graffiti reads, “Who dies tonight?” and is gone to a streetside table.
Leaning on my car this sunset, Tumbling her purse in searching,
I wait as a cloud bank reveals she’s taken a photo of defeated guidons,
remnants of a red moon. Photoshopped blue.
Ringing from the patio, It gestures toward Li Po for a title,
a Danelectro stings rhythm chords the narrative of its evolution.
over the arid, glassine evening. She’ll issue it with broadsides,
You appear across the grass, manifestos for a caring revolution.
cropped hair gleaming copper Mani-pedi matching,
under the courtyard lamps. she slips out of her shoes,
Sugar cane soda half-empty in your hand, hands conjuring illusions over Cabernet.
you call out, “Are we for drinks or for dinner?” People like me, she smiles.
“We’re a force in the world,” is my reply. They follow at a discreet distance all day.
She takes her cell phone, films
Spending loose change to save the dollar bills, cop cars as they cruise the lot.
I take a Red Bull, you sip the diet beer. Loosed from her lap,
Sirius reminds, “The road goes on forever…” the dog pulls at his leash.
Our drive takes shape in rough fables of Leaning over, she growls to him:
careless debt, schemes for summer wages, Resist.
the narrow argument for theft.
Impulse and memory fail
with each hard kiss, unzipped selfie.
The blocks roll stoplight to stop sign
as you post poisoned text and tweet,
copy my comments for replies.
What I owe, what I own
lumbers like a freight car.
Love is a lazing afterthought.
It preys in leering embrace.
I wheel the roundabout past
the fountains to the club.
You grab a Chloe bag,
strike into the crowd.
I hesitate at the valet, consider
the parking tower and the road.
Hard lights stream sights of
heiress, bodyguard, camera crew.
Spring is nearly over.

THE LAWMAN VENTURES SOUTH THE NIGHT CANVAS

I keep two calendars— The park empties--
one for penance prayers, bonfires doused, bottles drained,
the other for crimes I hope to commit. reflex of last laughter
Above my desk is seeping across a meadow.
the print of an ocean apocalypse: Couples scuff a lane through piled leaves,
Marines and pirates maim along the shore, retrievers bounding at their backs.
the Monitor and Merrimac churn on a reef, Runner’s range the corners and the cold.
Bounty restored to Bligh, slipping East A taste of icy air raw in my throat,
toward a blood moon, an ice volcano. wind’s edge sweeps the stripling trees.
I’m a creature of reflex and grief, Buildings blur to outline,
found money, the film noir beating. black against white sunset.
Like a West Coast hangman Wet wintry days approach.
my hat has a Montana crease, The Sunday chair and channels beckon.
a Peter Lorre pin.
The suit is Brioni, burglar blue.
Dusty Lucchese’s kicked to the couch,
I focus on a South Padre split.
Neon streams the window seat,
a smartphone chimes in its cradle.
Every call is one waiting for a death.
Three black cats crossed my grinning path to-
day.
I lost belief in bad luck when
the sheriff weighed his worth
over gin and twenties.
Five lies are told to cue
the lawman to his movie:
he’ll free the crook, call the girl,
take a midnight drive to Mexico.
He’ll end in an empty room
in an empty house on a beach in Baja;
no suitcase, no passport,
gunmen marching up the stairs
I keep two calendars—
one is for penance paid.

About the Author:

R.T. Castleberry is a widely published poet and critic. His work has appeared in Roanoke Review,
Santa Fe Literary Review, Comstock Review, Green Mountains Review, The Alembic, Silk Road
and Argestes. Internationally, Castleberry’s work has been published in Canada, Wales, Ireland,
Scotland, New Zealand and Antarctica. Mr. Castleberry’s work has been featured in the antholo-
gies, Travois-An Anthology of Texas Poetry, TimeSlice, The Weight of Addition, Anthem: A Tribute
to Leonard Cohen and Blue Milk’s anthology, Dawn. His chapbook, Arriving At The Riverside, was
published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2010. An e-book, Dialogue and Appetite, was pub-
lished by Right Hand Pointing in May, 2011.

SAND CRABS

by Melinda Giordano

Sand Crabs Photograph of the Comtesse Greffulhe by Paul
Nadar
The salt-sparkled sand
Drummed with life Proust’s odalisque
Beneath the yielding crust. A constellation of pearls in her hair,
And the caverns and tunnels, Lilies curling down her velvet spine,
Blind and subterranean, Grasping her waist
Hid from the inconvenient sea Like greedy hands
That drew closer Releasing her hips
With untimely precocious tides. And melting in a pool at her feet.
A persistent visitor, A Gollum made of crushed madeleines and
It crashed and pounded with a lunar force powdered meringues,
That demanded to be let in. She was a figure of myth and spells
Living until the magic word written at her
I used to thrust my fingers throat
Into the salty mulch, Was erased
Into the puzzle of catacombs And she would then dissolve
To pull out handfuls of silt Into lifeless, beautiful matter.
Crawling and chaotic - Standing in front of her mirror
Tiny claws that could not dig through flesh Like a dying Narcissus
Bedlam in my hands. Her drowning face
The tickle of nature’s confusion Reflected a soft perfection,
Unable to swim or crawl A feminine despair
A product of her compromise And a silken wit
Trapped at the edge of the sea. That rippled like the muscles of a cat
And would have bit me
Should I have tried to reach out and save her.

Curious Blanket

Nancy Cunard I pulled the blanket around me
Man Ray’s eccentric odalisque; A width of sleeping cloth
His peculiar muse To use against the velvet enticements
Swathed in bizarre jungles, Of the insolent cold.
Haunted by a ferocious mind that provoked And I began to feel the living embroideries
and teased Begin to effervesce,
The covetous avant-garde To crawl and whisper across my skin.
Like a child that plays with a toy The vines coiled into my hair
Until it falls apart. With green familiarity,
And when she found its foolish heart, The quilt hummed with birds, animals
With her enigmatic intellect And the palpitation of feathers and flesh:
She would crush it. Warming me with their circulation
Her pale eyes, bright and angry And thread counts.
With a bitter light, Small movements,
Were rimmed with black Unknown DNA,
Like a mourning card. Twisted around filaments and fiber
Her hands were coiled like animals: And swarmed into the hem:
Feral muscles that roamed The restless margin
Like villages and townships. Of verbose and lively stitching.
And from wrist to elbow ivory bangles
Were poached along the country About the Author:
Of her wild and untamed arms.

The Dissolute Moon Melinda Giordano is from Los Angeles, Califor-
nia, Her pieces have appeared in Scheheraza-
The dissolute moon de's Bequest and Vine Leaves Literary Journal
Opulent with an immoral glow, among others. She was a regular poetry con-
Beckoned from the clouds, tributor to CalamitiesPress.com and twice
That comely firmament, nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She writes
As lazy as a courtesan flash fiction and poetry and speculates on the
Prowling in the curled divan possibility of remarkable things - the secret
Bought from her soft earnings. lives of the natural world.
Pale and full as Aphrodite
Riding past Cytherian shores,
Serene in a twilight boudoir,
The moon blinked a louche invitation
And twitched her fingers –
Pulling the tides towards her
Revealing the fish panting in the dark
Where they glittered like stars.

REDGATE

by Robert Wood

REDGATE

Where carrots and cabbages
and ships hauled over sand and sound

where they remarked that
the colour was always green, somehow, and
the mushrooms were never found

where the twilight was molasses
because we lost our matches,
that was where they came to
and we knew, somehow, that their bones and wings would be laid there
when all the world found out.

Redgate 2
They know goannas and diamonds.
They know
committees of possum skin cloak legislations.
They know how to walk from coast to coast from capitals both.
They know where roughly the waves come in.
They know feathers and messages and pearl shells
and love marriages in the islands to the north that surround themselves with silk.
They know more, and, we talk
opening out to the law
knowing that salt is lighter than snow.

About the Author:
Robert Wood is interested in place, identity
and landscape. He has held fellowships in Aus-
tralia and the United States. Robert is currently
the Chair of PEN Perth. You can find out more

at: www.robertdwood.net

SELF BOUND

by Clara Leo

Do You Feel That?

Do you feel that?
That’s how it feels to be corporeal and temporal,
To have your soul picked among the billions,
More than the billions,
And matched with this mass of blood and cords.

Do you feel the twitching liveness of your eyes?
They can’t stay stationary for a minute;
If you don’t believe me, try.

Feel your skin. Warm or cold, smooth or spotted,
It slides over your muscles,
Stretches and contracts and holds you.

Feel your legs. Feel the muscles,
How the carry, and
Your weight, how it presses,
Powerfully,
The ground.

Hear the sound, whatever you hear;
It may be ringing, or silence, or
Rushing in your ear.

And think, the glorious twitching,
Neural wrestling and running,
Neural fighting and strong-arming the unsolved into its place.

Feel space.

We’re suspended.

We’re weighed down and we float.

Do you feel that?

Self-Bound
I am the gun-shy gun dog that wishes to be taught,
And the lofty alley cat that wishes to be caught.
I am the perfect record-holder longing to be beat,
The fugitive who wants the cops to take him off the street.
I am the flailing child longing to be held too tight,
The scientist who hopes to prove his theory isn’t right.
I am the hunter hoping that his gun’s not sighted in,
The concert master’s secret wish to break his violin.

About the Author:
Clara Leo has been writing poetry and music
from an early age. She is currently pursuing
degrees in music and economics at Wheaton
College.

INVENTING

GOD

by Mark Burke

INVENTING GOD

Who was the first to speak out loud,
call to the sky, invent a name
for the lord of light?
Was she in the mountains when clouds
came so low against the slopes
she dreamed she could walk across
into the other world where her mother had gone?
Was it when she tucked the stiffened hands
into the shallow crevice,
put the stones on her eyes?
Was it when she wanted to lie down
once more with the man she slept against for years
or in the shadows of a cave
when she begged for her baby’s breath
to thread the night again?
Was it when a man lay in the grass
floating an ocean of stars;
when he walked with his clan through the woods,
the sun beginning to devour the fog,
birds darting the air as he imitated
how they addressed the light?
Or was it a day like today
when she walks down the steps
with the last of her things,
her little dog dancing beside her leg
as if he was my soul reaching for her body,
jumping, staring up at her,
pleading for her touch again?

ELECTRONS LOSING

We’d lay on the sand around the fire, Days are not as they were.
the solemn, mumbled roar of the ocean, I clear the new field alone,
watch for shooting stars, pray for warm weather fill the wheelbarrow with stones, broken roots,
and the women it would bring. what I should’ve said.
Cast-offs from city, high school drop-outs I lift and stagger with the weight,
done with physics and the Roman empire, push the load, spill it in a row of piles,
each hermit had come during late April rains, the stone border I’ve made to keep you here.
squatted in the government forest. I’m always losing trees,
Zen searchers, learning the true way, limbs taken by the weight of the snow,
a case of beer in town, a salmon at the docks, deer reaching for shoots, cankers grown on the
hitch back to the trance of sky and water. trunks
I’d hike the days scouring for fire-wood, in the months of rain.
read in the late afternoon light, fried tuna, At night, I’m lost spinning with what you’ve said.
potatoes and onions over my little fire, I lose to the shambling bully
trek the rocks for the lies who prowls late-September nights,
we’d tell ourselves at the beach-fire. smashes fence planks, shakes the trunks
Burned down to embers, each climbed to his claim, until the trees give up their plums,
tent hidden with boughs, high enough in the woods his black pit-filled scat piled near the gate.
to dodge the rangers and the morning sun. I lose when the scar in your voice
Late spring brought women in twos and threes scrapes mine, the stricture of years
and paths wore between the ferns, electrons tightened around longing.
revolving each nuclei, doomed to repel and attract. Orchard voices seep into the air
I learned a forest-courtship etiquette, as I talk to the trees, prop up
gifts of firewood, mother-of pearl, what’s been bent but not broken,
the taste of ocean salt on skin, drift out on the plains of regret.
how her voice braided the ocean wind. I practice again what I will say.
Early evening, climbing her path with my gift, But there are mornings when a dream
I saw another supplicant clears the night, the pillow smells of your hair,
slip from her perfect blue tent your singing rises up
and paradise cooled. from the rows of blueberries
The laws of thermodynamics foment instability and I am found.
a harsh truth that must be accepted.
By nightfall, an extra electron flung off
seventeen miles down the coast highway,
I began to understand the classroom drawings,
the power released when a charge is thrown
from the nucleus, the flux of magnetism,
this way of rushing through the world.

MONUMENT

He penciled out his plan on a grocery bag,
cut the staircase timbers from what he saw
in the fir when it stood with its crowd.
Lumber stacked to cure through the winter,
each Sunday he’d go to the drying shed,
run his hand over each ragged grain,
breathe the cinnamon-fennel scents,
listen for her voice.
Gone for so long, he talks to himself, the birds,
the dogs, careful with his voice at the stores.
Building is his last solace,
making what will not go away.
He milled stringers and treads from the timbers,
planed them smooth, mallet nudged
the tread ends’ chiseled tongues
tight into the mouths cut in the stringers.
Promises only work once,
they lose their shine with each offering
and wear away.
Worn out, he left for town with her desk and books.
Still, he lathed the railing to allow her grip,
eased the spindles’ nippled dowels into the holes,
fitted the carved gooseneck insert
into the staircase railing’s turn.
Though each day her voice weakens with eleven years gone,
it drifts the room like perfume.
Cut, tried and trimmed again,
he shaped the pie-wedge treads
into a fan of steps to negotiate
the staircase turn at the landing.
Left long ago to his solitary strategies,
he has made a bandaged peace with his station,
grown the habits and compensations all must
to make their truce with time.
The staircase pieces glued not nailed,
wedged into one soul, he sits
at the foot of the stairs with his glass of rye
sailing the summer they met.

LEARNING TO DANCE

The year before I left school, I started

going to dances at the church hall.

Hooked on the two-four sorcery of bass and drum,

I’d hold up a wall for an hour

before I could ask the one whose eyes

turned ice to water.

Walking home, we danced the dark,

played hide and seek and I was lost for a year.

I woke as the plane eased down into Luxembourg.

My father would say, go where you want,

just tell me where you are.

I still tell him, evenings by the ravine

watching the juncos flit up to the feeder,

wisps of his voice falling behind my eyes.

That morning at the hostel I tried to remember

why I’d gone so far, rode the train to Zurich,

found the copy of Tolkien jammed behind my seat

I’ve kept all the way to now.

Four days later, near Chiasso, I hitched

across the mountain border pass into Italy,

traded my boots to the driver for a knife.

He talked to me like the brother I never had,

took me to his family on the high meadows,

two bedroom stone house, small barn

packed with sheep at night.

For a week I was a shepherd, scavenging the slopes with the ewes,

back by dusk, we ate rabbit in garlic and fennel

and I began to see what was important.

I had gone away looking without knowing

what was beyond the room I’d painted teal,

the pointless school, moody priests.

He took me back to the fork and I didn’t want to get out,

walked the dirt road until a flatbed

carried me all the way to Venice.

I slept the first night in the sand out on the Lido.

After four days I started hitching south again,

headed for Florence, slept in fields,

accepted what I was, that I was looking.

No rides for a day, evening staining the light, About the Author:
I laid in the grass off the two-lane road,

ate my crushed bread, cheese and jam, Mark Burke’s work has appeared or is forth-
read until the stars came out, coming in the North American Review, Beloit
watched for ring-wraiths, conjured Poetry Journal, Sugar House Review, Nimrod
how I’d dance now not so afraid. International Journal and others. His work

has recently been nominated for a Pushcart

prize.

LONG FORGOTTEN MISERY

by Jon Benham

Long forgotten misery. The soul,
reminds me of you.
They say, The savior.
control, control, The charlatan.
condone, condone. We’ll be back, in time.
Maybe then, your progress On my own, or so they say,
will have been shown. begging for mercy from the catharsis bestowed
Why must the view of window pane on me
be to blame for our struggle? by vapid strangers who-
When it is No.
the walls who beg to differ. They are strangers who belong nowhere near
And, here we stand, and these corridors.
for grandeur’s sake, we reluctantly ignore They belong beyond the window,
what is beyond us. but I hear them through the walls!
Long forgotten misery.
Sacrifice your wounds. Long forgotten misery.
It is for the greater good! What is left to comprehend?
Which of What must we do?
us Or, is the real question,
will speak so vibrantly that what must we say???
it must be in a tongue spitting I can’t even sleep,
out nonsense so violently? without you removing my spine
I thought that is why we are here. and then audaciously ask me to walk the next
I thought. morning!
I think it is time The misery is mourning.
to disrupt flows of ideas, The clouds beyond us are pouring,
to, and we dealt with drowning in the sun!
procrastinate,
in other words. No, no.
No.
Long forgotten misery. Gratitude is near.
It has been a specter for too long. Pleasantries exchanged.
But, Lies have been engaged.
how long will we long for it? You care?
The. Then why do you just sit back and stare?
Idea. I’m going the fuck home.
Of.
You.

Tarnished by energy getting mauled by time, They want to see ya dance, boy.
I conceptualize the sound of my breath. They want to see ya play, boy.
Invincible, as it seems to the naked eye, Your breath lies dormant.
it subsides to the agony of what I hear. You hope that it will remain that way
Speeds quivering. until eyes close and you can finally,
Silence. grasp,
Speeds quiering. an escape.
Silence. But, you always run.
Injustice, is all when breath struggles Hide from them.
to find its innocuous provider. Hide from them.
Who are you running from? What will they think when they
My breath cuts short. find you, though?
What is it that you fear? They will find you odd.
We are all afraid, we are all afraid. Odd.
I find, justice is solidarity. You run.
The punishment of trial and error. They find you weak.
The illusion, Weak.
being, which one are you? You beg for mercy.
Hide alone, feel disconnected. And they give it to you.
Hide from yourself, be disconnected. But, we must never forget,
Return to the breath, as it begs, who was the one who asked for it?
for your admiration. I am stuck in between the ceiling,
Your attention. and the ground.
You tell yourself time after time,
run.
The people will just laugh,
but,
run.

About the Author:
Art is my everything…
I was born in 1996, and, by 1999, my life was already upside
down. I was sexually assaulted by my babysitter as a three-
year-old, destroying all hope for a normal life almost imme-
diately. I struggled in school, was bullied to the extent that I
was assaulted again in 8th grade in front of an entire class of
laughing children. I was ostracized to no end. Now, years
later, I suffer from Bipolar 1 Disorder and Borderline Person-
ality Disorder. These control my life. Art is my everything. It
is the one thing that keeps me outside of the walls I feel
closing in. I have been published several times in the past
year for fiction and poetry.

INTRICATE MEANDERS
OF BRITTLE LAND

by Eduardo Escalante

Episodes to remember

How many times do I think I've lost
a river, culture, language, the sense of the first space
and in the right place. Despite the arbitrary questions
of certain races, the earth has marked the hands and arms
in the same way, the scars of the veins, sometimes brown, other times, gold,
everything, before sinking under the weight, the night.
I never wanted to grow up to be anything horrible
as a man, just a simple human being.
This afternoon a pulse touches me as if the rock waited for the wave to take off the algae.
Outside the wind builds and disperses the clouds,
a look at the time reveals to me that I have walked as if climbing a ladder.
There is no surface without hinge, support or screw.
An aluminum line as grooved ensures the foot, step by step, I'm gaining ground,
floating floors groan under the weight of oldness,
some shadow obscures a right angle.
This year has not been completely standing, although the body is safe,
the flesh is still alive. I have scratched the dust with sticks,
the knees have been tilted, sometimes submerged in some nostalgia,
but without knowing when, where, why. One happens between sleep and wakefulness.
Not all things are full of gods, in addition, there are different colors.
It is required to pronounce oneself in reverse to pronounce oneself,
lack of company is also part of the game.
Conversion is part of the prodigy of light (it's part).
Perhaps, if I shake Zeus's finger I will have a lightning,
Then, I will see the avenue that has been stolen. With the mud,
you can always make drawings, but the steel is calibrated.
I look back: so many things I should bury.
How to dissolve this life up to get me to the next.

Scene Sketch

We were caught in an equinox that looked more like a
cabin made with a comic manual

an arid environment where it was possible to feel knots on the back
I never had the certainty of being outside the chaos

Oh, of those who believe that the
city is full of friendly citizens, but they are dreaming thirsty of emptiness.
An epic determination to predetermine the body in the here / now. That's a fact.

I make myself into as tight as possible in crowds
As a courtesy to other people. They give me back an obscure sound. They live in a different
gravity, each one is merely a protagonist of his mirror,
there is not a residue of the emotion's myth.
they do not zoom out my grief under my feet, they feel great being just a wall

You must live with the fact that the whole city has a
wrong perception of the skin of people
I know people need mirages to get a bit of life
but above all they kill, the dreams are shipwrecked, and vocations die uncomfortable

We are volumetric examples that we live a surrealist century.

About the Author
Eduardo Escalante is a writer and researcher
living in Valparaíso, Chile; he publishes regularly in
Hispanic Reviews (Signum Nous, Ariadna, Nagari,
Espacio Luke, Lakuma Pusaki, among others); and
reviews in English (StlylusLit, Writer Resits,
Spillwords, Slamchop and in Gramma Poetry).

LOWER THE

BLINDS

by Edward Bonner

A faint murmured word spoken with a stunning smile.
Like opening your eyes in the early morning and gazing at Jupiter all alone.
A surreal glow filled the heavens from her beauty.
An enchanting fragrance, sweet - scented Dior Hypnotic Poison
relaxed a tense mood and eased my heart.
Within the captured secrets that held myself,
I kissed her warm lips.
A tender touch of breath brushed against her body.
Gliding the curvature of her breasts
under an ivory laced poet blouse,
unbound words blossomed.
We walked to my room and stood at the door hypnotized.
Her image emanates unimaginable gracefulness.
“I want you here tonight”
In a desired silence I revealed.
Unlocking the door we held each other like the god Helios embracing the earth.
Thoughts wreathed our emotions.
I whispered looking into her eyes.
“I want to dance”
Our dance.
Together.
Alone.
Reasons
by Earth Wind and Fire.
Why I love you
I can’t find the reason.
In our romantic world we danced until passion breathed into our bodies.
“Mountains over mountains.

The nights we stood outside staring at the North Star,
imagining our eyes will meet again.”
Now.
This moment.
What I am to you is real.
Then again we kissed.
Without breaking our rhythm, I carried her to bed.
Legs wrapped around my waist.
Window blinds lowered with only a filtered cast radiant enough I could see her splendor.
Another soft kiss on her neck,
earlobes and shoulders.
She wanted more.
Removing her blouse.
Tracing her breasts, feeling her tighten between my fingers.
Closing her eyes she gasped arching back.
Slowly kissing and licking.
Tongue tipped pirouette around,
to the sides and under.
Lead an integrating a tease.
Let it storm.

All our instincts crystallized
into a silent adoration.
I succumbed to her beauty.
I removed my shirt, and then, our skin met.
Cold becomes warm.
Warm becomes wet.
The excitement intensifies.
My lips followed her scent down to her thighs.
Guiding my head.
Pulling me in.
She was unstoppable.
I was unstoppable.
But a kiss is what I craved.
Warmth I desired.
This wasn’t only ecstasy, this was lost love.
So beautifully nude,
we made love.
Having her fall asleep into my arms,
I closed my eyes and drifted away.
I surrendered my soul,
till the end of time.

About the Author:

Edward Bonner grew up in a small mill town in
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.Hazelwood, Pa. A very
rough neighborhood. Raised by his mother and
grandparents until he was 13 years old. That's
when his mother remarried. He then moved to a
suburb south of Pittsburgh. Growing up, he pro-
bably got into trouble like most kids. An avid out-
doorsman. 5th degree black belt / 36 years in
Shotokan karate. Author of "One Kiss" Just One
Kiss. A collection of love poems and more. Author
of Through The Eyes Of A Lost Boy. A collection of
poetry about "Love, Loss, Trauma, Pain and Hea-
ling.” A journey of life through writing.

THE DRINKING POEM

by Jesse Domingos

What’s In a Name

Who was he?
The man I am named after, Jesse.
A king, a warrior?
No,

A shepherd with seven children.
What happen to your sons? Of your daughters?
Were you there as they grew up, or were you out tending to your herd?
Sitting in the pasture, dreaming under God’s light,
Watching over your flock, away from your family.

Father to a son, blessed by God.
King David’s father, Jesse forever placed in stain glass as the tree who
gave life to a king.
A stump sprouted with a single stock, a root, a lineage of God.
Was David your only destiny?
Did you live your life peacefully, Or did you fear God would talk to you,
Like Moses, like Jobe or Noah?
Did you wish you were Samson, Jacob or Joshua?
Were you a poet?
Did you write the psalms or did you just write them in the sand
Like Jesus once did?

We were borne with the same name.
You were born with freedom of making your mark
I carry your life with me.
We both turn to the simple life,
With the fear of God.
I wonder if I will surpass the water mark

Or be placed in stained glass,
Dreaming
Like you.

The Drinking Poem

I drink to be happy… because I'm sad.
I drink because I'm sad and I can't be happy
And I get mad.

I put on a smile, every day,
To keep people from asking questions for answers I don't want to say. I smile hard, which
makes others smile back. Their smiles make me want to cry
So I drink until those fucking smiles die.

I drink until my face falls to the ground
Until my soul is not to be found

I drink because I have to be happy when I'm always sad
I have to drink away the pain, like my dad.

I drink and drink and drink until my eyes dry from my tears. I drink to drown my fears.
I drink trying to be happy but I just drink until I sleep. I drink hard, heavy and deep.

When I drink I put on the smile and play the nice guy even though it's mean
Oh yeah I play the nice guy smart and keen.
I play that game until she wants the fiend.

I turn into a moon crazed beast, play-dough, a Greek God or whatever makes her feel the best
Until she falls asleep, and I finally get what I want, I care not for the rest.
Now I get to take what I need, somebody, a person to sleep next to in the bitter lonely night.
That's all I want, someone to sleep with, to pretend that they want me to with all their might.

I drink feeling like I'll have this great inspiration!
When it's only emotional masturbation.

I drink, when I'm happy because I want to be sad! I drink because I can't.

So I drink until all within me can't hide
And I drink until I kill all that is inside.

Abe Slams

He calls to Van Zant,
He calls to Hank.
Which is good.
He sings soft lightning under his willow thunder voice,
Pounding the carpet.
He sings to no one, not even to a full house.
Each verse turns his body.
3 O’clock,
He bleeds.
Only looking into our eye’s later to sell his book,
It’s not a sin
Validating is consent, even if you’re Poe.

Each poem-song said to the walls, written for himself.
Some laugh at his Hank vibrato.
Others mock his Elvis palsy beat and look toward the free food.

I stay silent. Listening.
Trying to see the poem
See his pain,
To see the frog in the cold, wild garden.
Sound and Fury.
Only, sound and fury.
He is an artist, but he is not mine.

About the Author

My name is Jesse Domingos I am originally from
Templeton California, I have been writing short sto-
ries and poetry since I was in high school. I have
lived in Jonesport Maine, Alameda California and
Salem Massachusetts. Now I live in Logan Utah and
attending Utah State University majoring in Creative
Writing to become a professional writer and teach
college.

WHO IS SHE?

by Magdalena Garcia

Who Is She

Don’t you see that she doesn’t care about you like me but still you love
her more than me, how could that be?
She shows you no love in your time of need unlike me, yet you bring out
the red carpet when she does show up and treat her like royalty.
She cares about you only when she needs your help but any other time
you don’t exist in her world.
She’s white and your black I wonder how she feels about that.
I’ve never seen her be affectionate to you, not a hug, or a kiss has she
ever given you but you made excuses for her and would often say “she
loves me her own way and that’s okay.”
We both came from you and we look like twins but our hearts are so
different. I got mine from you and she got hers from him.
She was the daddy’s girl and I believe that to be true even though we
both looked like him I always wanted to look like you.
She may not love you the way that you want to be loved, no worries my
Queen because you have another daughter that will step up!

HAIKU BETWEEN THE
EARTH AND THE
STARS

by David Boyer

Haiku Between the Earth and the Stars
milk splash in coffee the weather report for Jupiter
forest at dawn when she lied like a kaleidoscope
to be as many bodies
as there are
verbs in the stars
later little moons your fingernails left in my palm
my skin stretches to meet itself over the ice caps

Five Haiku at Night
cotton candy clouds to open my fist I whisper a wish
Friday the breeze you worked so hard for asks for a
separation
what happened to all those UFOs Fox News I guess
mid-autumn past midnight the train whistle won't dis-
appear
moonrise after the visitor leaves three white petals

Half-Dream Haiku

in this adventure every gold coin breaks a tooth
sinks under the waves to point out the ruined temple
moonflowers
that look
in the eye of my double
searching for gods in the light of ice-covered trees
and woke to the hiss of rain on the unfinished tomb

David Boyer

IN A PORTUGUESE FIELD

by George Moore

In a Portuguese Field Cow Swims to Safety

A dolmen by abandoned rails On her way to slaughter
that cross this terrible, empty field she breaks free of the line
in lower Europe, and the grave and we achieve a moment’s grace
toppled sometime in the first century swimming across Lake Nyskie
and near the rusted tracks to the island
still ringing with murderous days
and some poor writer struggling to escape the abattoir
for words, distills a rude our unconscious slaughterhouse
and rudimentary history we break free and swim singing
and no one comes up from the farm you can be what you want
to see what the stranger is doing. no need to die
Some things so evil can never be
given in verse, or translated, or told and Mr Lukasz lets her go
again in the same way. This (could not catch her anyway)
dolmen in an orchard has seen roaming the sands taking the surf
Romans displaced by Visigoths she dives beneath immortal waves
displaced by Muslims before the Church
took it all into its cradle. That act we surface on her back
of swift rewriting, he knows it, whale riders islanders
decries it, confuses it for a moment on the old pastures
with his own poor truth. and rich potato farms

and then dive again
into the solitary deep
her homeland Poland
where the dead rise up to meet her.

The Hundred Year Old Man The Parrot

I am the new hundred-year-old man, for Olga Orozco
bones white as glass polished by sand,
Pretend to speak!
arms like the twigs of the dying rose, Go on, those words
lips as sweet as figs below a steeple nose. you mimic are hollow
as the stinging nettle.
I once was a boy, lost in the thrill of surf,
once traveled the world in a psychedelic hearse, Yet you live a hundred years
outlive the best of us
feeding berries to the birds in Kathmandu in your cage, a factory
and wine to the women of old Chengdu. of lost voices.

My eyes are like diamonds cut from the rough You sleep in the jungle
out of the sockets of heaven, high enough and rivers run with your blood
and at night you grow wings
to see the fields of my years like a great desert for in the darkness
surrounded with forests full of living spirits.
you forget what is lost
I am here on the threshold of a fading world and found again
caught on a thorn, in the rose’s first whorl. by digging with your teeth
and setting it afloat

on the raft of your tongue.
You fly north to work collages
of yellow, blue and orange
of oranges and lemons

and the deadliest fruit
and yet no one believes you.
Your colors are the colors
of the sun which we

never recover
like needles and lips
prophecies and whispers
and the first bite of your Eucharist.

About the Author:

George Moore recent collections include Saint Agnes Outside the Walls (FutureCycle 2016) and Chil-
dren's Drawings of the Universe (Salmon Poetry 2015). Nominated for six Pushcart Prizes, and a
finalist for both the National Poetry Series and the Brittingham Poetry Award, his work has ap-
peared in Arc, Stand, Antigonish Review, Orbis, Valparaiso, Colorado Review and the Atlantic.

NIGHT A VISION

by Christien Gholson

Transubstantiation 4.

1. I’m stretched out on the linoleum below the
open kitchen window. Blue-lit insect wings flap
Who owns the note to the house? CitiMort- into and out of the apartment. There's been
gage owns the note. No, it's Freddie Mac. Trace another execution tonight. Thousands of volts.
the note through the ether and you'll find it's Everything burned away: guilt, innocence, love,
probably in a cloud on the net called MERS, an hatred, memory. All memory gone. And now
electronic registry - designed to track servicing we can sleep. The insect wings beat softly
rights and ownership of mortgages. No physical against the heat, the streetlight. This is the
note exists. The "note" floats out there above transubstantiation of lips, eyes and hands into
the earth, bouncing between satellites: the smoke. The soft whisper: forget, forget. Some-
transubstantiation of flesh into spirit. where, at the edge of sleep, the cities of gold…

2. 5.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado attempted to A sea turtle emerges from the waves. The
conquer new lands for King and God. He had a ghost of Coronado sits on the shore, waiting.
huge retinue of soldiers, following him into the He has no idea what the turtle is. A living boul-
unknown. For gold. Coronado gave the Indians der thrown up by the sea? A hideous angel
he encountered the opportunity to submit to come to take him back into the womb? He fol-
his King and God before he lit them on fire, lows the turtle to the foot of a dune, watches it
transubstantiating darkness into light. dig until it reaches wet sand, then excretes tiny
white globes into the hole. Eggs! As the turtle
3. crawls back to the water, Coronado crawls on-
to the turtle's shell. He will chance it, try to ride
The lawyer for CitiMortgage uses the "you're a the turtle back into the sea, back into his child-
deadbeat" line on the woman in the dock be- hood, start again, newborn. Turtle and ghost
cause her mortgage payments are in arrears. sink beneath the surface. This is transubstanti-
The woman loses the case, her house. Later ation of spirit into salt.
that night, she goes out into the backyard.
Mars is close, a red dot in the blackness, burn-
ing. Her two children are asleep in their beds
behind her. She vomits in the grass. This is the
transubstantiation of wood into fear.

My Father’s Body Night: A Vision

He’s on the floor again, passed out, naked. We drove for ten hours straight down 95, from
And I am the only one still willing to take him Saugerties, New York, heading to Orlando. Mother
to his bed. Headlights sweep across the cur- believed Orlando was going to be a holy land of
tains. Out beyond the curtains, the war contin- work: Disneyworld, Universal Studios, SeaWorld,
ues. Wet n’ Wild – and all those restaurants. I am tell-
ing you this from inside a dream.
I talk him up from the floor. I repeat the
words, calmly, clearly, so he can surface, pick Right before nightfall, in the middle of Georgia, we
himself up off the floor. I talk him through the followed signs to a state campground off the high-
steps up to his bedroom, to his wife, passed way, set up camp in the middle of a thick pine
out, too, a half-finished mug of wine on the forest. No one else was there. Was there some-
bed stand. Her nightmare shouts are what thing wrong with the place? It made my sister,
wake me to bring him to his bed. When we Linnie, nervous. She’d been obsessed with death
reach the bed, I see she is clawing the air again ever since my father took off. Mother told her to
for no reason (Because there can never be stop being such a baby. Remember, I am telling
actual reasons. What reasons can there be for you this from inside a dream.
jets flying into buildings? For a hellfire missile
fired at a funeral for victims of a hellfire mis- When the sun set it was so dark we couldn’t see
sile?) our hands in front of our faces. We had no flash-
light. Mother and Linnie crawled into the tent. I
There is a sycamore on the next street over. I was mad at Mother for scolding Linnie, so I contin-
sometimes slip out of the house after I put my ued to sit in the dark. Do you know the dark?
father to bed, peel the white and grey bark Darkness out there was a creature that swallowed
with stiff fingers, pulling skin from skin, trying me whole. Crickets and cicadas boomed inside its
to get down to the bone. stiflingly hot belly, a fierce wall of sound, louder
than my rising panic. This is the dream. There was
A couple blocks over, cars move through the nothing else.
brittle air. My breath steams orange in the
streetlight. No one remembers what the war is When you can’t see your own body, is it really
about anymore. I insert my fingers into the there? Shapes came and went: men with ant
sycamore’s shadow, searching for my own heads and alligator skin; whispering bats with lu-
body. minescent butterfly wings; the orange ash from
my dead grandfather’s cigarette. I reached out
with an arm that did not exist. Did I touch some-
thing? “Is someone there?” I said. I said it inside
the dream.

The next morning, we woke, ate peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches, headed back to the highway.
The car broke down in Jacksonville, so Jacksonville
is where we ended up. Now, when I can’t sleep, I
find myself at that campground, turning back as

we pulled away, seeing my own body standing Patterns, Take 2
next to the picnic table. Some part of me was
taken that night, enfolded into a vast body; fluid, 1.
amorphous, a black ocean with no shoreline…
My Father’s Body, Take 2 My grandmother gave me a tin full of love letters
that she and my grandfather had written to each
1. other before they were married, asked me to burn
them after she died. The letters were written at the
Those last weeks, we both watched TV, my body height of the Great Depression, in the early thirties.
near his. His death sat on top of the screen; a
pale, tiny homunculus. Both of us could see it, “Why me?” I hadn’t grown up around her, knew
but neither of us mentioned it. When it first ap- her only as stern and remote; a woman of few
peared, it could have been anybody’s death words. “I know if I ask you to burn them without
crouching there; the face still indistinct, without reading them, you will…don't be afraid."
definition: a child buried in rubble in Tokhar, a
man who suffered a heart attack in a Home De- 2.
pot in Gary, a woman murdered in a US airstrike
in Mosul. There is an energy pattern that hums through eve-
rything in the world: rocks, the wings of a fly, toy
A hand moved every so often, tried to get our dump trucks, vases, books, turtle shells, even
attention…I'm here… letters. A pattern made from the way the atoms of
a thing jiggle in space, making a kind of song
2. (beyond the range of human hearing).

I answered the phone, knowing it was him. I al- I made a fire in my wood stove, crouched next to
ways answered the phone and listened to the the stove door with the tin of letters. I could feel
same slurred words. Angry, confused. If it was the pattern-energy of those letters coming through
raining or snowing, I’d open a nearby window, the tin; so many strange songs moving through my
stand in front of it, let the rain or snow fall onto hands. And I thought: why am I doing this?
my skin. “You kids…taking everything from me…
you have no idea what it’s like…” What were "Don't be afraid."
those drunk words hunting? They pounced here
and there, came up with nothing. 3.

3. I burned the letters, stared into the fire through the
glass. Were my grandparents hungry, angry, seeing
After the last breath, his face went immediately only a bleak future stretch ahead of them forever
white; wrist and fingers instantly cold. Mine, too. when they first met? Had that made them fiercely
There was no blood left in the room. The air- alive? Did they mistake that survival struggle for
conditioner rattled on. A hand waved some- love?
where - please, I'm down here, hurry…
In the middle of the night, the letters were glowing
embers, ash. Words that birthed my father, me,
were ash. Words that now never were…

Don't be afraid.

About the Author:

I'm the author of two books of poetry: On the
Side of the Crow (Hanging Loose Press) and All
the Beautiful Dead (Bitter Oleander Press; final-
ist for the NM book award); along with a novel,
A Fish Trapped Inside the Wind (Parthian
Books). A long eco-poem, Tidal Flats, was pub-
lished last year by Mudlark (online) as a chap-
book (issue 63). I live in New Mexico.

STARS

by Cecilia Devine

August Stars

What would you think I conjure images within myself
If I told you Of what a star should be.
I dreamt of
Bright, gaseous, full of light,
your open-mouthed kisses on my neck Unbenounced to eternity.
And I ask myself why it takes

your touch against my leg- Something so heavenly
stained with the Redwood Earth? For me to feel like a part of anything.
My elements are that of the universe,
You and I hidden altogether by
A canopy of trees. Well, at least partially,
Stars connect- and perhaps dissect,
I could have grown up in this forest.
More than constellations,
I fell in love with your hands first. The intricacies of humanity.
The same way I fell in love
With Nabokov and Poe- Afterall,
They say stars fly, as do you and I,
And their stained glass sapphire desires
From a time so long ago. At a touch or lowly whisper.
This may make no sense,
My angel’s limbs And I must confess,
Hang out of car windows I am hardly a philosopher.
And cross over each other But I would likely bet
While I wait at a bus stop.
They curl around your torso You know at least of our sun.
They hang limp over your shoulder. A driving force,

I scrape my knees Of day, of life, of unity.
Climbing maple trees
(and you ask if I bleed syrup) About the Author:
Taste it for yourself and see,
Mistake me for too sweet a thing, Cecilia Devine is a young aspiring writer from a
Leave my cuts to get infected. small town in Vermont. She has been published
in the literary magazines "Between Ranges"
Have you become and "3 Elements Review". Outside of writing,
the poison in the wound? she participates in activism concerning Human
Rights, open mics, theatre, and art. She is also
Maybe. one of the leaders of her local Queer Straight
But still I dream Alliance, and hopes to start a pride celebration
in her home town.
And bleed.

I SEE THE GREAT
CITIES

by Joseph A. Dandurand

I did not gather I would make love to her
and we would have children
we are all here for the who would drown in the
same reason or another
and the breaths we take in lust of all the other evil
and out and in and out men who wander this earth
give us the time to and only appear when they
experience all that life are caught in the
has given us and we spider’s web.
never question our place here
and I am like that in some way we are all told at birth
as I guide my people that one day you will
away from despair. vanish and I did not
gather that idea of
we are all the same and our living forever and so
hearts beat for decades and I find myself being reborn
decades and we grow old and and reborn and reincarnated
slow a bit and eat very little as a simple man with four walls
and we do not become great and a doorway and one window
beings of strength and wisdom overlooking the rising river of
but we become the lost shells my love for all that
on the beach of eternity. breathes
in and out
we are all alone on a planet and in
filled with lost and forgotten and
people who may live to out.
starve to death and they may
live to die in a fire set by a
madman but we move on
and we breathe the poisonous
air into the unattractive one
thousandth day of our lives.

we are all sinners
of one religion or another
and if I could find my angel

At night I am broken again Inspire the other

I have tried and failed we left each other wondering
at taking my own life and the if there would ever be a tomorrow
first time I ran out into and she told me that she loved
oncoming traffic and I was another man and I took it badly
broken up and drunk and did and ended up unable to eat and drink
not realize that the girl I loved so I sat there and stared at the walls
did not even know who I was. and I wrote and I wrote bad poems
about the question of why did she
spent some time in a madhouse love another and how could she
and slept beside Jesus and he love another.
woke me up one night and told
me to drink his blood and eat as the pieces of me began
the body of Christ and I did to come back together
because he was Jesus and you I met a beauty from another
do not deny Christ even when nation and she had a son and we
he began to sing songs of glory. both devoured the other sensing
our losses and remembering our
I had a dream of driving my car past as we tore into love making
into oncoming traffic but my mind as if it would be the last time we
could not trick my arms from pulling ever touched another human being
the trigger so I drove and in our wanton ways we were
from coast to coast smoking able to put the last piece in place.
cigarettes and drinking whiskey.
when I was on the road
I’ve slit my wrists but only I could search for women
deep enough to draw blood who only wanted me
and I watch it drip to the ground to take them and we would
and form a puddle around my play games and for awhile
bare feet and I began to dance I was rather good at taking them
in a circle and beg forgiveness to the place they needed to get to
as the sirens could be heard and we would both dive into
in the distance racing to me the sorrow and the lust of one
as I slowly bled. another and I walked away
and out the door and down the road
I imagined hanging myself I could hear her whisper to her
in my smokehouse at the lover that there would never be
back of my house but I could another to take his place.
never tie a proper knot
and I just stood there with centuries later I got a call
the rope around my neck from her and she said she
as the smell of smoked fish missed me and said I was
covered me and I realized always on her mind and I lied
that at night and told her the same but I could
I not tell her the truth that the
am man she knew so long ago
broken died in a flame of destruction
again.

and all that was left was the creates a symphony of the
need to inspire the other and she heavens and the gospel like
hung up the phone and forgot all chorus of heroin addicts bring
about me and even though I had the whole show to its
glimpses of love I walked out ultimate climax.
the door and down the road a child walks from corner
as the day opened up to corner asking if anyone
to the new love and passions has seen her mother but the
as the people deny ever knowing her
song and the child walks on into
bird the night and goes to every corner
screamed. of this city and moves on as
she and I go to the great cities
I see the great cities and we walk on searching for
our mothers who have been
in the depth of the streets missing for far too long
there are creatures who and now the missing fall
come out at night and they to the heavens of another
seek to take the will away world
from those dreads who sleep too far to see
on the ground with only too far to walk to
one blanket to cover as the
their lives. rains
fall
the day begins and the yes
lovely people come out the
of their mouse holes and they rains
seek that tasty piece of cheese fall.
and they scurry from here to
there and they make small About the Author;
weeping sounds as the city
overcomes them and they Joseph A. Dandurand is a member of Kwantlen
race to get back to their First Nation located on the Fraser River about
mouse holes and they dine 20 minutes east of Vancouver. He resides there
upon their rotten piece with his 3 children Danessa, Marlysse, and Ja-
of cheese. ce. Joseph is the Director of the Kwantlen Cul-
tural Center. Joseph received a Diploma in Per-
the drunks open the bars forming Arts from Algonquin College and stud-
on the eastside of this ied Theatre and Direction at the University of
floating city with buildings Ottawa. He recently published 2 books of poet-
so tall they talk to God ry: I WANT by Leaf Press (2015) and HEAR AND
on a daily basis and the drunks FORETELL by BookLand Press (2015). His new-
sip cold watered-down beer and est book of poems: The Rumour, will be pub-
the clinking of their glasses lished by BookLand Press in (2018) SH:LAM
(the doctor) will be published by Mawenzi
Press (2019)

YOU HAD ME AT
GOODBYE

by Alan Berger

YOU HAD ME AT GOODBYE

All the things you left behind.
Your toothbrush, your pillow, where you would rest your restless mind.
The book you wrote and read out loud.
The way you couldn’t blend in with the crowd.
A dog and cat that still wait by the door.
Your last pair of socks still laying on the floor.
I remember you saying that when you were just thirteen,
You knew you would walk always with a melancholy sheen.
Some call it shadows that disappear in the fog,
Sir Winston Churchill called it his “Black Dog”.
I could not be more serious,
We almost had a near life experience.
I’ll still feel the same rain and breeze,
But my head on your shoulder gave me my peace.
They say time heals,
It doesn’t.
They said it was all just a dream,
It wasn’t.

About the Author:

ME
Me I have a gimmie shelter puppy kitty cat
His tail swishes like a crazy blind bat
I hope one day he wakes as big as a tree
So he can devour all my fears
Without hurting my greatest enemy
Me

BELLE VOIR

by Marc Carver

BELLE VOIR

As we sat in the restaurant
one of the woman who worked in the restaurant came
and sat opposite me for a meeting
I could see her open legs under the table
almost to the crown jewels
I looked a few times
until she could feel my eyes on her skin
then she pushed her hand down to force her skirt down
but she didn't look at me with disgust
so I started to look in other ways with my shame
but I couldn't help but trying to look again
until eventually she moved to a new position.
I didn't know why I didi it
all I can say is
it is my nature.
At the end, after the bill our waitress gave me a customer feedback form
I put good food and good service
but only later did I think to put
a lovely view also.

ONE OF THESE DAYS

We went down to the sea
put mud all over us
and baked in the sun.
Some people had left some cut in half water bottles filled with mud
an old Scandinavian man came over to his family
who were covered in mud.
The little girl wanted to put some mud on him
but he shuck his head
and moved away.
I looked at the water bottle
and had a massive urge to grab it
and pour it all over his head
you never know one of these days.

FINISHED About the Author:

I sat on the bench
finished totally finished
I asked him to send me something
anything
of course he did
knowing that I would fail
and of course he was right.

JEALOUSY

As a young man
I was always jealous
as an old man I have no jealousy at all
every chance a man gets he should take it
and forget about the consequences
the trouble is
the older you get
the less chances you get.

NEVER THERE

The young woman walks along the beach
as soon as she walks 5 steps
the sea washes them away
almost as if

I have been a writer a long time now and hope
that I have given some pleasure to others and

this is why I continue to write