​ 
When you came home
 from the city
scared
confused
crying,
I offered you
the only thing
I could give you.
And sat with you
on the living room
steps and held
your hand
In silence.

 

​For many years I looked at
The good doctor's poem
and wondered,
How a few simple words
could be so popular.
So adored.
 
Only sixteen words,
 a single sentence.
A red wheel barrow.
White chickens.
A few raindrops.
 
And I thought, how silly,
how banal,
how insignificant
this poem.
 
At age sixty-four
I finally understand
how much
depends on the everyday
treasures of life.

 

​The shale rock reluctantly
yields its treasure.
Blast it! Bulldoze it! Pulverize it!
'til you get the coal.
 
The groan of heavy trucks,
 A narrow country road.
To the river! To the river!
 Load the barges on the
Monongahela.
 
The coal! 
Fossil ferns so long ago
shaped by time and heat,
molded by the
weight of earth above.
 
Up to Pittsburgh! 
Down the Ohio!
To Cairo, Illinois and
The mighty Mississippi.
 
 
But in this brokedown place,
Of old mine shafts,
there is nothing but
the orange color of the
lifeless creek,  
black dust choking the
withered grass, the runted trees,
and the spirit of the people.
 

 

​His axe falls,
logs crackle
and tumble
like bowling pins.
 
Snow building from the west,
huge flakes fall
like so many white
pom-poms cast by the goddess.
 
He looks at the slate-colored sky.
A torrent of memories;
His childhood,
so long ago ‒
sixty years or more.
 
Black construction paper,
The child's paint brush dabbing
huge white snowflakes
and pleached tree limbs
of his imagination.
 
 
Dreaming of a place where
pines and spruce shield him, where
a pincushion of stars and the
night sky swallow him.
 
His dreams lift his young body
 buoyant, soaring,
away, away, from
the dreary fourth floor flat.
 
He was always quiet,
a loner.
How blessed to be here,
Now,
among the pines and spruce,
chopping wood, his tongue
tasting the snowflakes.
Delicious. Ecstatic.
 

​I wake up shaking from nightmares where
I fall for him again.
Wake up a couple months back
feeling in the dark to where his heart begins,
spilling over nightstands and toilet paper
to pool at his feet in the morning with
fingertips at the small of my back.
.
But I wake up. Knowing that
he laughed like nights were here to stay
now mornings take longer to live,
and I go through my days pretending
like I don’t know
that snot-dried sleeves sparkle.

​“I don’t get how you still love him after all of that, no,
how you still need him.
I thought you were a feminist.”
Because how dare I tie myself to a man who loved me,
but didn’t just love me.
Crawl back into his bed after the other had left crawling back
to where I other’d.
How dare I choose a metal band to a free hand,
choose to kneel for poetry
when I could stand for nothing.
How dare a bird love its cage,
how dare it sing in an open cage?


How dare a feminist choose?

​I understand if
you never let me
borrow your clothes again
 
Whenever I eat
something I love
I’m as clumsy as a bear
 
But the noodles
were hand-made
and were so delicious
 
You could smell
the garlic bread from
across the room
 
When I saw
the waitress coming
my mouth watered
 
After the first bite
I didn’t see the stain
on your favorite shirt
 

​I should have
texted you before
that I was
going to be late
 
Please forgive me
but I was
a busy bee
eating kettle corn
 
while watching a movie
instead of checking
the time we
were supposed to meet
 

​Hardwired for the tailspin, 
I submit to yet another tour of the States 
because the bills
don't pay themselves,
loonier forms
of Yank indignation
than the homerun trot,
my birthright
sluiced to a wince,
what the critics back home
describe as 
the preexisting condition.
Stymied by a drunken ruckus
on Houston 
I take my nightly constitutional
down Canal instead, 
virtually renewing old acquaintances
in the stairwell,
a custom
as cozy as the whammy bar.
 
This is where art steps in. Lovely Rita,
you'd know her if you saw 
her and I'm not kidding,
the provocation of the uncovered ankle.
The girl who knew stasis when stasis 
was the only game in town,
pronounces me
too damn serious for the overcoat
and for the buckled shoes which present
an entirely different set of problems
in the bathroom stall,
the arc of the angel mired
in the belly flop.
 
Whitehorse
where trouble always finds me
in tweed,
another would-be approaches me
before the last call
to bum a cigarette.
I write my number
on his girlfriend’s palm,
too eagerly he quotes lines from poems of mine
written when I was a twenty-something,
now that's what I call
an intercession,
lilies for the gilding
and the pronounced glottal stop
that can only be understood
parsed half to death
as the necessary predisposition 
for an even higher calling.
 

​Stuck in the one place in New Jersey
where George Washington may not
have slept,
I find myself again
subject to the approval
of the heavy brass,
which is to say
the band was indeed all there,
gathered around the dying patriarch
proud even now
of the pig Latin
in which he could both curse
and pray.
He had been informed
that he and his wife of fifty years 
looked more like brother
and sister than husband and wife.
Imagine that
and while you are at it
imagine a sky bereft
of clouds
even as the old man decides 
to keep on living despite himself,
despite the certainty of the prognosis,
and the efficacy of the machines arrayed
to carry him across
to the other side.
I recognize that morning clearly now
for what it was,
my last shot at reconciliation 
with my dying father,
as subtle as the bell bottoms
that were just one of many forms of rebellion,
as discrete as the
ourishflay ofway ethay assbray ectionsay.
 

​I found country comfort
in the old Volvo,
windows rolled down
in another small act of defiance,
static for company,
the albatross plush won at the church bazaar
to pimp the rearview,
and the fraying memento mori
of the rope coiled beside me
on the passenger seat,
brazen reminders
of the complicity of alone time
like the dashboard buttons
that lent themselves to your pushiness
on trips along winding roads
to and from town.
​

​Such incidents are much less common
these days than you'd think,
first you forgave me for the flamenco
on the very night we watched the meteor shower
in its entirety
from the relative safety
of the little league diamond,
then you turned on me
as if kinks to iron out
meant as little as chain link
or that my father’s indifference to you
could be resolved by looking
beyond the swaying furs on Opossum Hill.
You threw my well-worn copy of Finnegan’s Wake
out into the muck
and condemned my entire record collection
for skipping
in all the wrong places
as if on cue,
as if I had willed it,
and I virtually had to beg you 
not to hate the Carpenters,
who were after all
my first real teachers
and the sole witnesses
to the events of that night.
 

​In our final hours together
sitting beside the lake
you saw me for what I was,
the only one who didn’t cop a key to the city,
a man made complete
only by his pettiness,
which amounted to an obsession
with the smallest detail,
to wit
your graduation photo crumpled in my fist
when they found me
sitting cross-legged on the hood
with the engine idling,
the prospect of time served
for having reinvented the wheel,
and the salmon
of the sky at dawn
the one thing from that day
that they couldn’t wrest from me.
 

​the numbness begins as a bludgeon
on the sides of the tongue,
a tingling in the fingers
as the poison kicks in,
an itch behind the fingernails
that dig into the chair’s
tattered arms.
There are records of confusion
when the condemned reach this point,
rambling confessions
and the inevitable glassy eyed stare
almost a silver screen affectation,
and always the itch 
and the consolation of befuddlement.
How badly I want this nosebleed
to mean something
more than the poke of crocus
through the early spring snow,
the snowman
having finally mastered
the art of running in place.
 
 

​(albeit for all the wrong reasons.)
(albeit the no-frills version.)
(albeit a third again the calories.)
(albeit only in batting practice.)
(albeit rattan.)
(albeit the made for TV version.)
(albeit a totally convincing cover band.)
(albeit the product of fracking.)
(albeit an acceptable level of collateral damage.)
(albeit using the less orthodox spelling.)
(albeit in 1/16 scale.)
(albeit without the maracas.)
(albeit in the less common gaseous state.)
(albeit with only the one glass slipper.)
(albeit based on the less satisfying prewar translation.)
(albeit under slightly modified club rules.)
(albeit clearly pirated.)
(albeit having disregarded “Simon says” completely.)
(albeit sans the fanfare and the ticker tape.)
(albeit “rousing” in the archaic sense of burnt to a crisp and “success” in name only.)
 
 

Peycho Kanev is the author of 4 poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in the USA and Europe. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Front Porch Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Hawaii Review, Barrow Street, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review and many others. He has three nominations for the Pushcart Prize.

​The stars are there from
the beginning of time,
but it’s not the same with the eyes looking at
them from here              
and from everywhere
 
The beginning--
 
The beautiful hand, the muscles, the huge brain, the neurons,
working together in perfect harmony
 
We were created perfect.
 
So
thank
You!
 
* * *
 
But now the miniature signature of
the Creator climbs up in the bloodstream
of the worshiper: cancer.
 
 

​“Rise! Walk!” I am watching the Word abandoning the chimney
(it doesn’t want to rise and doesn’t want to walk…), and the
winter, the fog, the whiteness and everything else, and I rise from
the mud and step on the Word, like a today certain Lazarus--
and here I am - starting slowly to walk on my own here and
everywhere, where my dreams can’t find me, hidden - even
from all the nightmares, that I am Him.

​All the pranks we did as kids, descend into my memories
now, using the same threadbare rope, which we used to
play cowboys and Indians with.
The land receives green telegrams from the spring
and responds with blossoming and new fragrances,
sweeping the snow under the carpet,
like a drug addict who heard banging on the door.
The sunset is creeping like a vulture in the sky,
the blue and vast, enormous sky inside my head
and soon the dark will be here again, but before that
the memories will come back to that deserted place
with the windmill and the sails that didn’t budge
even in the most powerful wind.
 
 
 

Joe Albanese is a writer from New Jersey. His poetry can be found in recent or forthcoming issues of Chronogram, Evening Street Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Projectionist's Playground, Straylight Magazine, and other publications. Joe's novel Caina (Mockingbird Lane Press) and his novella Smash and Grab (Books to Go Now) were both published in 2018.

​She inhales from the east coast and
exhales smoke to the west
If this ghost should find her, she’ll
simply let it float away
 
He’s a masochistic preacher, attempting
to find meaning in nonsense
Always trying to hold on to what
already flowed away
 
They’re sleeping on tracks with the
train in sight, just unsure which
direction it travels
Feeling its rattle is proof of life
 
A palm face-up twitches closed with a single
drop of rain — how much can it hold? We
lose more with a tight squeeze, and always
drown in what first stirred us alive
 
The winds of treason brought them
here, now each blow is a pull
apart. There is no need to force, they let
it float away
 
The train rattles where it comes from,
to. He inhales her trail of smoke from a
passenger’s cracked window, but
long ago knew they already flowed away.
 
 

​I die in there
when we’re
in the same place at
the same time
 
and always dreams apart
 
so in vain, like
A Nightmare on Elm Street
I’ll try
to never fall asleep
 
because you kill me there
 
not with
bladed fingers or blatant
irony, but
 
with your
original form and clever
indifference
 
with my weighted steps
that
never catch up to
your dancing
 
with the way your
panorama
catches every detail
of that world
while skipping right
over me
 
you’re the ghost I always feel,
the ghost I can’t quite touch
 
so I pluck you
from there, not because
I need to
destroy you
 
but so you’ll know
 
I’ll let you kill me here too.
 
 

​I’ve seen the girl I wish I’d marry,
but test a dream, I’d never dare
 
Hope comes in waves of good intention
then blasts and scatters in the air
 
Moments stumble no matter how rehearsed,
            inside out-of-reach,
all fate’s coerced
The things we want the most are just too rare
 
I hold the hand of muddled vision
to see how something sentient compares
 
Hope comforts dreams in clouded poison
that leaves them choking on fresh air
 
Through loss it comes with golden curse,
brings lucid storms,
            the clearer verse
To heal is just to dance with disrepair.
 
 
 
 
 

​I’ve been playing
that “someday
it’ll be
worth it” game
too much lately
 
the same game I
played
fifteen years ago when I thought by
today I’d be
ten solid years into
happily
ever after
 
the same game I played
ten years ago,
before
another this time turned
into another next time
 
it’s the same game I
played
five years ago, the one one that
filtered out the
unabashed
from shame
 
but it’s lost something
this time around --
those false connections in
displacement,
and grey hair is no longer
scattered
 
doors move on, windows
only let
in the cold
 
and even I struggle
to find those
strands
of
someday
 
because
I know
one day that someday
won’t
 
be there.
 
 
 

it’s not that we
don’t see
 
the beauty
in the world
 
we see it all
we see more than most
 
what destroys us
is that we know
 
the distance
between
 
and with each attempt
to get close to the beauty
 
that distance only
becomes clearer
 
we know we’ll
never reach it.


​

​So many ways there are to fly:
 
Cardinal zips overhead,
A blur on the periphery
In the breathless rush of wings.
 
Swallows play on the updraft,
Weaving the bonds of their joining
In the chatter of an April evening.
 
Hawk glides just below morning
Wind combing through each feather
In the buoyancy of freedom.
 
You soar languidly the skies of dreams
Over the walls and above the fences
Beyond the prison of your life.
 

 

​What is a ghost but the absence
of darkness, a hazy disturbance
in the pitch black of forgetfulness--
each memory a failure
to forget so bright it blinds us?
 
The searing flash I see
is less you than the electrical
firing of the synapse that
holds your name, flickering,
alone, surrounded by the
barren synapses of those
names I forgot I ever knew.
 

 

​Nobody builds a maybe-wall,
   contingency plan for removal
   or Date of Destruction etched
   into the cornerstone--
No, you build it to last, outlast,
   to endure when your ashes
       long cold lie at its base,
   to last after the birds that circle
       your coffin have been extinct
       a hundred thousand years,
   to wait, impassive, for some future
       archaeologist to expound
       to a group of bored students
       on the ancient practice of masonry
       while serious interns measure
       its breadth and depth.

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published work in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Microfiction Monday Magazine, 365 Tomorrows, Star*Line, Speculative 66, James Gunn’s Ad Astra, 101 Word Stories, and others. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver where he works hard to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections and other works are available at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8.
More information at http://www.kacweb.com.

​I sure wouldn’t want to end up in a situation
where there were a bunch of me lined up like
cheap cigars in a case waiting to be reanimated
each time the multiverse branches. Still I
guess that is better than being a nut-less squirrel
stuck on a distant branch of the tree of knowledge.
 
Have you ever chased deep deep deep
into Wikipedia? So deep that you couldn’t
find your way back or even remember
what started you down that rabbit hole
or even what your name was back then.
 
Gina once threaded my needle
but I froze, afraid of breaking
the thread. I guess that’s how it always is
Broken threads. Wine glasses
bobbing in a sea of ochre.
 

 

The Blood & The Flesh
​

​I watched as Grandmama filled
the thimble-sized shot glasses
with Welch’s concord grape juice
and placed them in the round silver
communion trays stacked three deep
in preparation for Sunday Services
at the Church of Christ across the
dirt road from her house.
 
I remember the white welcome sign
that sat angled to the street corner
welcoming all with a list of
worship times and the name of the
constantly changing pastor who lived
with his wife and/or family in the
small white house behind the church.

The church lawn was where the cousins,
myself included played football or tag
or other games, the lawn where after
having enough of his taunting and
laughing and natural athletic abilities
I jumped up from being hard tackled
and punched Randy square in the nose.
Blood flowed and the flesh cried. It
was different after that.

 

​The light arrives by truck this morning
an 18-wheeled Peterbilt growling into the sky
the brilliant sun lashed to its flatbed trailer.
In the cab a burly trucker with a scraggly beard
and a belly the size of a barrel wrestles the massive
wheel, grinding the gears as they climb into the heavens.
 
The driver looks nothing like Apollo or Helios, in fact
he looks more like uncle Strat that I don’t much care for
what with his overwhelming aroma of whiskey,
tobacco juice leaking from the corner of his mouth,
and a scowl for every passerby. I look up again to the
brutish Peterbilt driver making his way across the sky,
I give him a nod and smile, thankful for the light.

 

​Authority without accountability. The
unacknowledged class structure of America.
Battle lines of inequality between rich and poor.
It’s about taking cigars from a convenience store
just because you can, because they make you feel
inferior make you feel bad, but you are big, bigger
than they are, you can do what you want. You can
walk down the center of the street if you like,
smoking your cigar. You’re tired of listening to them.
What the hell are they gonna do? Lock you up?
You laugh, shake your head knowing they locked
you up decades ago and threw away the key. You
laugh, smoke your cigar, tilt your head back
and blow smoke at the stars.

 

After that we believed in Kansas
again. We held our hearts and
our ruby slippers out in offering
to all  that would care to see and leapt
like flying monkeys into the crystal
lakes and swam through the tallgrass
prairie, buffalo thundering alongside
us, massive dust clouds rising
into parched cerulean skies. Aunt
Mae waited for us on the porch
wringing her hands to the bone. 
​

​I was reading three books simultaneously
the resultant inspiration became a poem
 
 
Noah's flood over Bering Strait
when it was when it did happen
remove the flywheel cover plate
check for crank shaft end play
thus spoke Buddha while asleep
 
you bodhisattvas of past and future
therefore because as we ought to know
the exhaust gas recirculation system
install the oil lever pump spring
delievered into the nirvana tank
 
the nature of the truth is not understood
nor can it be true or false
the air conditioning system is just frozen
its installation is not even cold
well done quite well done with a blow troch
 
the enlightened spiritual car repair
torque the bolt to eighty foot-pounds
 
lower the self to flat existence
test drive
 
 

let the bell toll
the bell ringer has died
 
let the bell toll
the bell ringer is no more
 
let the bell toll
alone

​

in the valley of ten thousand mines
buried in silence and yet to explode
ten thousand flowers are about to bloom
the cries of soldiers who perished long ago

​

​I look through space-
a one-way mirror,
and see you
with my doppelgänger.
 
My body- a hologram
in your real world;
our lives programmed
dimensions apart.
Feelings big-banged,
scatter further
with speeds greater
than thought.
 
Yearnings- an impossible
travel through space,
launch oblivious to man-
made time and direction.
Sensations are numbed,
nulled, in the vacuum
that binds together
our eternal separation.
 
We live
in parallel universes.
 

​ 
time is
an old, rusty, rickety- rackety farm truck
on dusty, rugged, unpaved roads,
 
moving more side to side than forward
 
with me hanging
like the charm to the rearview mirror,
swinging uncontrollably
 
with the slightest of bumps.