Yessica Klein is a German-Brazilian writer living in Berlin, Germany. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Kingston University (London, UK) and was shortlisted for the 2017 Jane Martin Poetry Prize (Cambridge University, UK). She is currently working on her podcast, @thatpoetrything. I Am Always Hungry & Wanting To Have Sex |
Edward L. Canavan is an American poet whose work has most recently been published in Cholla Needles, Necro, and the Citly Limits anthology "Poems of Political Protest". His second poetry collection entitled "Protest and Isolation" was recently released by Cyberwit Press. Born and raised in the Bronx, NY, he currently resides in North Hollywood, California, where he practices Buddhism and listens to The Clash. |
staring back
the sunset still
shines thru
here in the wilds of the mind
the words tame the beasts
while everything else
has its way.
*
lasting light
and across the seas of time
to darker places of need
to bring forth anew
the break of chance
to other hearts
half a world away.
*
groundlessness
myths of stone overturned
inquiry evidenced as not the end
but the means to it
let go the conundrums
that grasp and cling
ease the pain
by letting pain be
nothing lasts
no light
no darkness
be still
at both rest
and motion
in the spaciousness
of eternity.
*
a ghost in the canyon
holds a memory of you
something in the rain
stirs the heart
bringing back the winter
of our brief endeavor
whatever there was
whatever could have been
lost in the hollows of my longing
rose-color
now removed
in hindsight
but there’s still a flower
in the back of my mind
that will always bear your name.
*
it’s ok
and song
the mind adrift
in dirty waters
pulled back
again and again
from shadows of sadness
cast in candlelight
as the heart murmurs
its bearable pounding
beneath the weight
of all that is yet to come.
*
The Birds
of old black women in their plumed church hats. Because they are the color of crows,
some people mistakenly call this group a murder of blackbirds, but the correct terms
are cloud, cluster, or merle. And when they fly in the early morning, they sometimes
combine with other species like grackles, starlings and brown-headed cowbirds,
creating a swarming, swirling, undulating black cloud of aerial ballet called a
murmuration. But the vocabulary used to describe this avian invasion is never
the first thing that crosses my mind. As hundreds of birds suddenly populate my
lawn like so many scattered, animated commas, I always feel a sense of foreboding.
I’m filled with an uneasy dread, trepidation approaching the jagged edge of terror,
just like I felt long ago, sitting in the darkness of a Michigan movie theater in 1963.
Revelation at Mile Marker One Twenty-Five
A backpack, a yawning laptop computer, a box of Kleenex, a brown
porkpie hat and a sea of twisted car parts, items once together, scattered
like pieces of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle on the shoulder. She could barely
look inside the car at the broken glass, bloody airbag and her son’s shattered
cell phone. But afterward, she remained busy with funeral arrangements
and gatherings, leaning into life like a soldier marching against a stiff wind.
She constructed a roadside memorial at the accident scene, so her son would
not be forgotten. She made a promise never to let the display deteriorate,
like so many commemorations on the roadside, gone wrong from neglect.
She had always wondered why people made memorials that were so beautiful,
and then allowed them to decline into twisted trash, like the accidents they
represented. So, every two weeks, she would return to the site to replace
the faded bouquets, deflated balloons, and clean the road grime from
the cheap, white plastic cross. But after a year, the day came when she broke
her promise. She realized that, for strangers speeding by on the interstate,
her display could never really be a monument to her son. No one would ever
stop to read his name or the date of his accident, so like those before her, she
stopped tending to the memorial. Now, all that’s left is a sad, neglected, anonymous
display that tells passersby that, unless they’re careful, they may die in an accident
the world may soon forget. And she’s okay with that, because she now realizes
that a roadside memorial, at best, is just a public service announcement,
to remind drivers who pass this way, of their own mortality. A message that
motorists can absorb in seconds through a car window at seventy miles an hour.
Requiem for a General’s Limb
at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. But, only two years later, the French Navy invaded
Veracruz, Mexico and the general made the short ride down to the port from his home
wearing just his nightshirt, astride a large black horse. When the French admiral saw
a mounted man yelling and waving his sword, he fired a ship’s cannon. The cannon shot
landed next to Santa Ana’s horse, killing the animal and wounding the general.
After Santa Ana’s lower leg was amputated, he took the limb back to his Hacienda
on the outskirts of Veracruz, and buried it on the grounds. Four years later, when
he was elected president of Mexico, he exhumed the leg, put it in a large crystal
vase and transported it to Mexico City in an ornate coach escorted by a contingent
of soldiers. The leg was given a state funeral and burial beneath an elaborate monument
with full military honors. There were cannon salvos, parades, and speeches by members
of the cabinet and congress. But in 1844 public opinion turned against Santa Anna,
and rioters destroyed the monument, dug up the leg, and dragged it through the city
by a rope chanting “Death to the Cripple.” Santa Ana had a number of prosthetic legs
fitted over the years. Ironically, two of his legs were captured in the Mexican-American
War of 1847 by the 4th Illinois Infantry. A cork leg is displayed in a military museum
in Springfield. A wooden peg leg, captured again by the 4th Illinois Infantry, was allegedly
used for a short time by the soldiers as a baseball bat, and is now housed in Decatur, Illinois. Multiple requests from the Mexican government for the return of the artificial legs were refused.
Santa Ana died in 1876 and was buried in a glass coffin with full military honors in Mexico
City. Just prior to his death, when his political popularity faded, Santa Ana lived in exile in
Cuba, the United States and Caribbean islands. He traveled extensively in North America, although, it is still a matter of dispute as to whether he ever set foot in the state of Illinois.
The Last Valentine
up the nerve, he’ll open the door to the cacophonous clatter of late shoppers
in search of last minute valentine greetings. But for now, he watches the Boy
Scout, the grandmother, the fat man with his hat on backwards and the pregnant
woman herding two children, all headed for the automatic doors. They’re on their
way to buy cards, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, candy hearts with messages,
red helium balloons, and flowers. Later, he joins the crowd in the greeting
card section, elbowing close to the rack to buy one of the few remaining cards.
He can reach only a few, and for the rest, he reads stale sentiments over the
shoulders of other shoppers. He has a desperate desire to find just the right
words, words wet with love and lust, wonderful words for his wife that tell
her how he feels, how they feel. But finally, he realizes that these valentine
cards written by strangers, could never contain what he wants to say, and
would not capture the wonder of her, of them. So, he buys a card, but ends up
dropping it in the trash at the store exit. No greeting card describes him arriving
home and putting away the groceries, then finding her in the laundry room,
kneeling in front of the dryer, singing a song they used to dance to years before.
No card portrays her flirty smile, as she folds his jeans, warm as fresh baked bread.
Nowhere is it written down, that she stands up, humming that tune again, and puts
her arms around his neck, as they slow-dance down the hall toward the bedroom.
Shelf Life of Concert Tickets in a Pandemic
A man is only as old as the woman he feels. Groucho Marx
tickets to the Rolling Stones Unfiltered Tour concert in Atlanta.
They were very good seats near the stage. Today, I learned
that the tour was postponed indefinitely until after the pandemic.
Of course, the concert wasn’t cancelled, or else they would
have to refund my money, it was just postponed. And now,
as the money for these tickets incubates on my Visa card
I begin to wonder how much longer I should expect these
old geezers to live. Will it be enough time to squeeze in another
tour? Are the Stones somehow inoculated against catching
the virus? For seventy-six years, Mick has been particularly
resilient, having been married and divorced once and going
through a series of girlfriends like Jerry Hall, Carla Bruni,
Angelina Jolie, Brigitte Bardot, and Tina Turner. His latest
partner Melanie, is a ballerina, more than forty years his junior,
who gave birth to his eighth child in 2016. So I’m hoping
that given his youthful demeanor, he will survive long enough
for me to use my tickets. I know Keith Richards will make it.
I saw a photo on Facebook where three of the Stones were wearing
surgical masks, while Keith just stood there with a big smile.
Personforms
and the guy with the two wheel trolley
who opened the door,
which I snuck through,
wore a big beanie and blue overalls,
was wordless and hairy,
and had eyes as wide and
as wild as the forgotten glaciers
on the Moon.
I thanked him briefly,
and got the hell out.
Accented
Irish like the winds above Omagh
that float across the sea
to me
winds like a voice
her voice
like a drip of wine
fermented
and squeezed
from grapes
grown in a greenhouse in Co Tyrone
Melancholia
in a cupboard at
the back of
my mind.
I take it out on
occasion. Dust it.
Fiddle with it. Hold
it close to me, shut
my eyes, and try to
sense the
details of
its contours,
its lines,
its grooves,
its cracks,
the patches where
it has been worn
smooth.
It is a good pain.
Sturdy and
unforgiving.
Gracious
and quiet.
Worthy of a
song.
The Glass Fortress
Some bastards would smash
The bus stop outside school to bits
And we’d all have no choice
But to walk through those
Fields of glass across the pavement
The chunks of glass were like glacial mints
And tinked around your feet like coins
As you strode through them
And I pretended to be Stormfor, Master-Warrior
Smasher of the Glass Fortress
Liberator of Planet Y-Z
Or I was the world’s most flamboyant billionaire
Touring the diamond patch
Within my vast safe of countless riches
And soon I would have acquired enough diamonds
To swim through them like water
Like that child I still wait
For glory
Or for riches
And that bus stop
Has not been smashed
For many years now
Mysterious Ways
‘cause they pricked out
their own eyes
with toothpicks
and their god ate them
Whether John Dorroh taught any secondary science is still being discussed. He did manage, however, to show up at 6:45 every morning with at least three lesson plans and a thermos of robust Colombian. His poetry has appeared in about 80-85 journals, including Dime Show Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Os Pressan, Feral, Selcouth Station, and Red Dirt Forum/Press. He also writes short fiction and the occasional rant. |
Meditation for the Mountain in My Rearview Mirror
something that coats the trees perhaps,
a Velcro-like substance that pulls clouds
ever so close to jagged surfaces, the teeth
and jaws of mountains collaborating
to redirect nature’s very breath? I have seen
the clouds scaling up the sides of shale
and limestone facings, intermingling
with every cell, every floral tissue in their
paths, only to be split and rerouted, sent
to other counties and countries
with supernatural compliance. What
do mountains know about water droplets,
and why should they care which way they
go? After all, a mountain is a mountain,
exfoliating shards and flecks over the course
of a million years. Is a mountain jealous
of a cloud’s fluidity, its ghostlike
existence, the way in which is appears
out of thin air, in fallowed fields, on
river banks and city suburbs? Is a mountain
unable to compromise, toss in the towel to a bit
of fog? I wonder if mountains are too proud
for their own good, too petty to showered
with praises from those who sit ten miles away,
in cars, waiting for the thick gray mist to lift
so they can get home and take a nice warm bath.
The Color of Thunder
Izzie was pacing in the kitchen. “Let’s go down to the basement, Izzie. Hurry! We may be having a tornado.” She followed me down the 10 steps into the basement where we sat on the floor, her head in my lap, my left arm resting on her back. I swear I heard her ask me to pray. So I did. Just for Izzie. I said a short prayer, asking for a hedge of protection around the house and for friends in the path of the storm. It got quiet and still but I knew that it wasn’t over. It never is. The next morning the sun lifted itself up over the line of hardwoods that line the back of the property. There were branches everywhere. Big ones as large as a man’s torso, small ones the size of a garter snake and every size in between. The mail box lay crushed in the middle of the road. I spotted more than a dozen dents on the hood and roof of my Civic. (“Great,” I said to myself. “Wonder how much that will cost?”) maybe doesn't belong because he’s thinking about more than matters of money) My cell phone exploded in my pocket. It was my ex. “I’ve had an accident. Can you come pick me up? Please.”I fed Izzie her breakfast and left her in the dog run. “Be good, girl. Don’t know when I’ll be home. “But it won’t be long. I promise.”
This Year We’ve Opted to Buy Local Honey
my toes curl up into the tips of my tennis
shoes, and I think about that day, camped out
for a couple of hours at a slick, marble-topped
bar where the keeper mixes me a slightly dirty
martini that made me see double. When you say
72 bear sightings, I make an unintentional compare-
and-contrast on the similarities and differences between
beach and mountain.
I am eating local honey, boosting my compromised
immune system to new heights; that I could hope
for more is ludicrous, considering how asthma has
reshaped my alveoli to favor shriveled grapes;
to say that the magical beach bars are better elixirs
might be jumping the gun.
You run ahead of me on the trail that slopes like a ski
jump down to the river, the place where bears have
eaten their last snack of blackberries and some other
unidentified plants. This is where Mama takes her
cubs to learn to fish and how to scrub their bristly backs
on innocent trees that have no say as to who scratches off
their delicate bark.
We rubdown your body with tanning oil as I wind
the key at the bottom of your strong spine. I point
you to a space between two families. “You will be
safer there,” I say as I head for the cold air of the Civic’s
interior. I shoot pictures of clouds on top of the blue
bridge over the bay and make a list of restaurants that serve
crab and shrimp for Happy Hour. The palm trees are sad today,
sort of misplaced and not feeling as elegant as the ones
I see in movies. It’s okay because at least the they
are still alive.
Mitchell Waldman's fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Scarlet Leaf Review, Ariel Chart, Fictive Dream, The Waterhouse Review, Crack the Spine, The Houston Literary Review, The Faircloth Review, Epiphany, Wilderness House Literary Magazine, The Battered Suitcase, and many other magazines and anthologies. He is also the author of the novel, A Face in the Moon, and the story collection, Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart (Wind Publications), and serves as Fiction Editor for Blue Lake Review. His new story collection, Brothers, Fathers, and Other Strangers is due out later in the year from Adelaide Books. (For more info, see his website at http://mitchwaldman.homestead.com). |
My Brother Left, But He Came Back
we got machine guns with rocket launchers
and “seven bonus weapon delivery systems!”
we barricaded ourselves behind snow banks
tossed plastic green grenades
made the whistling sounds
and the cartoon KABOOMS! for the landing effects
and our friends did fake shrieks as if hit.
We didn’t know this was real
living in the suburbs
with our little patches of manicured lawn
green grass edge trimmed to perfection
against the hard sidewalk surface
even though Vietnam loomed closer
body counts mounting on the TV news everyday
we were just kids
we would live forever
and it was just another show
until my brother went
the one I always looked up to
who protected me from the world
the one I asked for advice about everything
what to wear
girls
what to eat
what music to listen to.
But the day
he went
I missed him--
there was a hole in my chest--
for eight miserable months
waiting to hear from him
a letter a card.
Then one day
a man in a uniform came to the door
my mother told me to leave the room
and when he left
my mother was crying on the couch
a hanky to her face
she looked up at me
through the clouds of tears
that lost look on her face
and didn't say a word
just pulled me to her
held me tight,
so tight that it hurt.
My brother did come home
came home in a box
no one left to protect me from the world
as they lowered him into the ground.
But who had protected him?
And who will protect them all from the world now?
Eating
dull tedious ritual
spearing fork into meat
bringing it to the mouth
chewing chewing chewing
as your wife is packing her bags up to leave
cutting, spearing, chewing
as your father hangs by a life’s thread on the morphine drip
swallowing, drinking, spearing again
as your brother lies white as a sheet, the heart monitor beeps coming slower and slower
chewing chewing chewing
as they hand you your last check with a “Sorry” and a “Good luck”
cutting chewing swallowing
wiping your mouth
as your life slowly, steadily
unravels
becomes an empty well
the life you can’t seem to stop.
Putting fork down
all done
done.
And what’s for dessert?
A Heart Song for You
nothing esoteric
profound
nothing from the cosmos
or beyond
just listen:
I feel lost
lost
lost
when you’re not around.
Simple, to the point,
the truth.
Heart feeling heavy
when you’re not there,
at night
reach in the dark
in the silence
just want to wrap my arms
around the place you would be,
where you were,
hear you whisper in my ear,
feel your breath on my cheek,
lay your head on my chest,
stroke your hair,
hold you forever
forever
forever
in my arms
the heart of the man knows
what his head doesn’t
you said once
but now it knows
want to feel you warm against me
no space between
want to share the air that you breathe
drink in that first kiss
tell you I love you
watch your eyes consume the words
know that it’s true
want to get back to that place
feel your heart magnet love
beating against the walls of mine
two hearts echoing as one
feel our tears intermingling
warm
a salty sea of birth,
want to get back
back to that place like no other
your small hand in mine
my hand on your hip
your eyes on mine
your lips, tongue, on mine
carry you
hold you
skin to skin
dance with you
at midnight
and say
there has never been a time
a day
a night
there has never been a love
like there is
here
now
today.
Lia Tjokro loved writing when she was a little girl, she wrote on an old diary book that her father bought her. She stopped "fun" writing for quite some years when school, university, and postgrad studies kept her busy. She earned her Ph.D in cognitive psychology/cognitive neuroscience, and worked in academics for a while, and more recently, she re-discovers how much writing means to her. She is a wife and a mom of one now, and continues trying to be better in writing. You can find some of her poems at her twitter: @februalia1, and her short stories (in English & Indonesian) here: https://lia.kool-tjokro.net/ and here: https://www.kudetamag.com/blog/2020/11/18/let-there-be-light |
when the world falls…
will you stay,
by my side,
and not let go?
when the world falls,
will you wipe my tears,
and not blame?
when the world falls,
will you hold me,
close,
and not doubt?
ah…
the fire that burns,
the wind that shatters,
the force that hurts,
the future that scares,
our road has met
our journey as one
and yes,
my dear
when the world falls,
i will be here…
To Those, Who Have Lost
too soon
words, still, left unspoken
stories, still, left untold
hearts, still, left broken
in millions shattering pieces
what can i do?
in the face of fate
what can i do?
in the grip of grief
what can i do?
when heavens turn away
when heartbreaks show no mercy
when healing is slow
when being strong, weakens
eternity is long. Too long.
when there are questions, unanswered,
when there are love and a lifetime to fill,
when you have lost, and not found
this is, to all of you,
who have lost,
who have grieved,
who have hurt,
who have cried, when noone's watching,
who have laughed, with tears in your eyes...
this is, for you.
Inconsolable
Shining, captivating
a heart, still, breaks…
The One
enjoy your smile
one,
sees the wounds
behind it
many,
listen to your music
one,
becomes the reason
for it
many,
dance to your laughter
one,
wipes the tears
behind it
many,
try to read your mind
one,
sinks
in it
many,
play with your heart
one,
breathes life
to it
Categories
All
ANIL KUMAR
ANNA DEH
ANOUCHEKA GANGABISSOON
ANTONINA ROUSSKIKH
AUGUST ULRICH
B.I.V.
BOB DAYNES
CHRIS CASCIO
COLLEEN J. PALLAMARY
DR. DOUGLAS YOUNG
EDWARD L. CANAVAN
EMME OLIVER
HARRIS COVERLEY
JEFF BURT
JOHN DORROH
JOHN ROSS ARCHER
JR
KEITH MOUL
KEVIN R. FARRELL
LAURA JOHNSON
LIA TJOKRO
LOIS GREENE STONE
MEGAN LEE
MERLIN FLOWER
MICHAEL COYLE
MITCHELL WALDMAN
MOLLY KETCHESON
MOLLY LIU
NALIN VERMA
NGANGO MILAZ
NIKKI NORDQUIST
RALUCA SIRBU
RC DEWINTER
SANDI LEIBOWITZ
SCOTT CLEMENTS
SUZANNE S. EATON
TAMARA BELKO
TERRY SANVILLE
TOM ZOMPAKOS
VAISHNAVI SINGH
WILLIAM OGDEN HAYNES
YESSICA KLEIN