FFR 34

Fowl Feathered Review is the disorderly quarterly published on a consistently sporadic basis by Fowlpox Press. Art
and layout: Pâris Paté. Editor: Virgil Kay. ISSN: 1929-7238. Published with financial assistance from the Ecum Secum
Literary Arts Brain Trust.



POETRY BY MATTHEW WILLIAM JOSE

Goose Rocks Driftwood

Oh Yes, the wilting of a lesser man hurts far less.
Unless you are the lesser man of course.
Or unless you’ve mastered a sailor’s smile.
Or unless your heart has already been cut away.
In which case the wilting is a secondary consideration.
Like the blue waft of ocean waves.
Where underserved, improving horizons loom.
Where we can sing as if on fire.
Where we can pull down the shades.
Where we can dream of lavender impossibilities.
Where our souls can be worn smooth like the driftwood at Goose Rocks.
Here, high above my head, I lift my bottle.
Hoisting to the simple.
Hoisting to the dead.
Hoisting to the scent of afterwards.
Where the centuries have been hurled vaguely out to sea.
I will meet you there.
Where the lesser men weep.

Maybe

Love is a bottle of beer poisoned by a passerby desperate to find meaning in a life of
commonness.
Maybe.
Love is a drunken housewife crawling amidst the flower beds underneath a heaving
sun desperate to find escape.
Maybe.
Death is an incessant dog bark vying for attention, lingering between quaffs as
something creative is set to begin.
Maybe.
Give me a rusted pair of pliers and I’ll pull these broken words fast and straight down.
Maybe.
All these hours spent.
All these hours spent bobbing in the lull tides.
Ruefully musing.
All these hours spent bent and bellowing away like dangling propellers.
Low hanging.
In the shadow of a great darkness.
Only to fool them again.
Maybe.

Insisting Upon

Insisting upon something that just isn’t there.
We’re all guilty of it.
At times.
We force life rather than allowing it to rest in its perfect incompleteness.
As ridiculous as garlic a thousand years old.
As ridiculous as dusty blades of lamplight.
As ridiculous as one night stands.
Insisting that death won’t find us anytime soon.
We’re all guilty of it.
At times.
We embrace trivialities rather than eyeing the grand fulfillment.
As inevitable as cats walking without concern.
As inevitable as teacups and puddles.
As inevitable as a carpenter’s swollen thumb.
We insist upon joy smeared recklessly.
We insist upon the cool, clean sheets of renewal.
We insist upon jellyfish pickled beneath the rocks.
But who are we to insist at all?

Sad-Eyed Farewell Things
Those eyes.
Those sad eyes.
Terrified at the sight.
Of the buffalo bone hills.
Of the blackbirds mocking the roses bloomed.
Of the death ledge tiptoed, dumb and crazy.
Those eyes.
Those veiled eyes.
Blinded by the sight.
Of Dear Old Willie bare handing the knife blade.
Of the steak cooked too tough to cut.
Of the shotgun blast suicide wall.
Those eyes.
Those sad, veiled eyes.
Have seen so many farewell things.
And they’ve become words.
And they’ve become pages.
And they’ve become tales to tell on nights unable to sleep.
And like the strings of a marionette.
Or crawling flames.
Or drunken animal crossings.
Those eyes have endured the pain.

Residue

The residue of a goodbye love is smeared all over the walls of what was once a nice
place.
These words, now ridiculous, once meant something.
Like the softness of a pumice stone lost in the rough exteriors.
Meanwhile, somewhere, there is failure enough to fill three mountainsides residing in
the right shoulder blade of a punch-drunk journeyman who fears the symphony as
something far too definite but admires the toad gripping a dusty dirt road in search
of the golden hued valley.
There must be something to this.
Because my arm hurts too but it’s more in the elbow region.
The bartender leans over and asks if I’m ok and if I would like another beer.
I say no to both counts and slide off the stool, exit the bar, and head west into a night

with quickly thinning air.





THE UNSOLVABLE
OLGA VIRYAZOVA

The sea steals the land from us
so as to give it back later.
The sea lays bricks askew,
building the earth – all seams are out.
The ridge the storm has left,
the new shore
thrown here at night,
so close to the door,
reveals a different landscape
and speaks of the unsolvable.
Come out onto the tousled,
altered beach,
walking on the shells and
the bordering, protecting pebbles –

the depth, a tsunami, a war,
or the leakage of coffee grounds
anything you choose is a loss
the seething of resentment.
The day rolls down into a chink,
and the other side of the sun,
the unflattering depth,
looks out from inside the things
as a jellyfish of rays.

Over the shells, over the pebbles,
the inexplicable Inexplicable
flies, passing us by.

And you follow it,
along the edge of the sea and the fire,
hurrying to embrace
and take a photo.

(translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian)

COSMOGONIA
VALENTIN EMELIN

In the galactic center there is a gap, a black hole
in the fell of the space; constellations, like salt,
emerge on the mane, swirled in a twist;
the gnat of stars is hovering over the whirl,
carried away from the neighboring suns,
and the cosmos is turning over, like a sleeping beast.

Sucking into this vortex, gradually
descending from the elephants to the three whales,
with their wide-open insatiable jaws,
the black hole everts inside out the nebula,
throwing it into the maelstrom of the Milky way,
screwing even the light with its pitch-black claws.

Time is overstretched in an endless agony,
flowing into the bottomless breach of the cosmogony.

There is the similar puncture in my microcosm,
like a dot on a white sheet, as a nexus
I am pierced with a needle of a thorn
through my abdomen into the solar plexus.
Like a moth with flaking wing-scales,
the soul is pinned to a wall,
and is trembling, shriveling at the face
of the void of the absolute cold.

My soul is sinking into this micro-hole,
the black emptiness, the funnel of blank
darkness the color of anthracite coal

There will die all that is Us, all that is I:
flower blossom and sunset sky,
raindrops and childhood dreams,
faces of loved ones and mother’s milk,
nightingale’s song and passionate screams,
shimmering sunlight, feather-grass silk
and a line

A DANCE SONG TO THE SON
ARSENII ZHURAVLEV-SILIANOV

Dad is dancing,
you see how Dad is dancing
dad would
like
to be with you
dad again
has been fall-
ing like
a graph
some-
where today
dad bends
like grass in the wind
like a stick yanked
to the hell out

Dad has par-
ted with
his new another
he is just tired
of flog-
ging
the same dead horse
of the birds' dances
of flirtations
the thin ice is better
than that
and again
Dad is dancing

Dad is dancing,
you see how Dad is dancing

Dad's always
looking
for a new pro-
ject
Dad needs lying
through his teeth
with inspiration
he needs it
like breath-
ing air
Das is riding the wave
Dad is sailing off into the sun-
set
Dad is driving his oars
through the water
his sails
are torn again

Dad's a de-
signer
Dad's boosts
new trends
of all those
natty stu-
dios in the net
Dad is so busy
Dad is always
at someone other's house
in the jaws of the walls

where he's
dancing again

Dad's dancing,
You see Dad dancing

Dad would like
to be with you
Dad gnaws
his finger-
nails
nibbling off his
sub-carapace
black shad-
ows cut
the red dance floor
Dad makes
wild guesses
he shoots
in the dark

When Mum is
around
Dad is always
as sharp as ice
he smothers
his hatred
he'd like to have
Mum's nipples in his mouth
Dad goes bananas
Dad feels like sheet
Dad is freaked out
Dad comes apart

at the seams (translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian)

Dad visits
at the weekends
he is met
gingerly,
with cau-
tion
Dad is worked up
he is gloomy like a thunder-
storm

Throw
the sorrows away!
Come on,
let's celebrate together!

Dad is dancing
Come on, come to the center!
You see how Dad is dancing
Move your leg, like I've taught you.

Dad is dancing
Now together!
Dad is dancing
Let's do it again!

Dad is dancing,
You see how Dad is dancing
Dad is dancing
Dad is dancing

That's enough, my sweat. I'm tired.

THE CONVEYOR
VICTORIA KOLTSEVAYA

The conveyor belt started moving;
the lubricated reduction gear twitches.
The day is over, which is good.
Beer, some food, and mineral water
will lubricate both point of view and speech,
helping to wake up or to lie down.

My star still shines somewhere,
Cologne's water ripples with waves.
A kettle starts boiling over Warsaw
and hisses at the Market in December,
not approving of the unyielding scheme.
I live like a mouse in someone else's hole,
or maybe a mouse
lives in me.
One turn of the key,
and the cage starts singing,
and a bird builds a nest on the axle.
A gray pivot bolt has nowhere to fly,
and it's not afraid of foxes or ice holes.
You used to sing, my bird,
so go on, sing again,
whistling to the tune of summer,
while chattering teeth in the cold.
Threadbare rubber belt,
I hope
I'm not going
to get caught in you. (translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian)



POETRY BY ROBYN COLQUHOUN

DAWN SONNET

Lay down a path through dying hour of Night
that She may walk upon to rebirth sought;
with ne'er a thing that moves within Her sight,
nor stirs a breeze that breaks a silence caught.
For when, from slumber, She is made released,
and to Her soul there comes a misted calling,
then slow, She'll feel the bonds of Night to cease
and give to Her a sky of darkness falling.
No sign will stand as herald to the Dawn,
no loss remain that takes the place of Night,
but all now come will be from future drawn
to cover every shadow with new light.
And to this daily miracle on Earth,
She enters as a newborn from its birth.

IN AUTUMN'S DEATH

In autumn's death
when red leaves fall
and fade to amber
where they lie,
the trees stand bare
and mourn the leaves
that stirred within
each breeze's sigh.
And heartless winds,
by winter cast,
then banish autumn
to the past
while trees in silence
bear their grief
till springtime brings
the first green leaf.

NIGHT MURMURS

At end of day in darkening sky
when stars awake and please the eye,
there comes, to sanctity of night,
the moon adorned in nacred light.

And here below this astral show
the orisons are murmured low
to silence each new fall confessed
before each sinner claims their rest.

THE LOVE YOU GIVE

I am time to you that matters
I am nestled in your soul
I'm the span within the wings you crave
all parts that make you whole.
I am teardrops in your sorrows
and the warmth upon your skin
I'm the rise and fall of every breath
you breathe out and breathe in.

I'm a breeze that brushes past you
I'm the moonlight of your night
I'm the earth beneath your footsteps
and you're flow within sunlight.
I'm the magic you imagine
and each fact you know is real
I'm the comfort you find in your arms
and empathy you feel.

I am wishes you keep secret
and the hopes that you hold dear
I am all that you reach out for
and I'm always yours to fear.
I'm your constancy of wanting
and the need you have to live
and from here inside your heartbeat
I am all the love you give.

THE SILENCE

In a fearsome note now sounding
from the air inside a wind,
there's a stirring among songbirds
from the echoed past within.
While they fly above the others
who are fighting to be saved,
we are standing with our backs to them
in sympathy delayed.
We are architects of failure
that is feeding on our guilt,
and the weakness of our logic
in the lies that we have built.
We ignore our misconceptions
of the truths that we despise,
and we're deafened to the warning knells
from land, and sea, and skies.
But when every bird has fallen
and lies still, upon the ground,
we shall pick our pathways through them -
no more thrilling to their sound.
And in days that follow after,
we'll be proved to be so wrong
as we stumble in the silence
of a world with no birdsong.