|
Keith Burkholder was published in Creative Juices, Sol Magazine, Trellis Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Poetry Quarterly, New Delta Review, and Scarlet Leaf Review. He has a bachelor's degree in statistics with a minor in mathematics from SUNY at Buffalo (UB). We Don't Ask to be Born Think about this title for a moment, We don't ask to be born, People obsess over being parents, In the end of it all we all die, Why do we obsess over having children? There is an excessive overpopulation in the world we live in, Meaning, planet Earth, Natural resources are being wasted, The world continues to get worse each day, Again, no one asks to be born to live in this world, How can the world get better? This is a question that is hard to answer, People are afraid to love on another, We live in a society that is fake in so many ways, Just by being good helps the situation greatly, Being a human is a reality, Choose before reproducing, Think about the consequences about bringing a life to the world we exist in, Again, we don't ask to be born, Take care for now and spread goodness, This is all you can do and all anyone can really ask for us, Carpe diem.
0 Comments
 Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Anitgonish Review, CV2, PRECIPICe, Existere, Windsor Review, Vallum, The Dalhousie Review, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review. Why Glass Ceilings will Always be Broken She walked into the building and asked to see the manager and when she was told there was no manager to speak of she turned and skipped back out past the concierge who, holding his hat in his hand, knew nothing of Oliver Twist or the opium trade or how to rebuild an engine of flesh and desire. How a Fire Escape Becomes a Marriage Carve me another neophyte, mister Brubaker more tripwires than shacks in the woods and I have seen the communiques – panic at the highest levels the people can never know or they must stop being the people there must be confidence in the general paradigm petrol stations full of cars, all that… lovers in beds soaked through with perspiration acids and antacids set in opposition. I love my job, don’t you Miss Klein? Get Pederson on the phone so I may suckle from the dry sulking teat of injustice. The Gasoline Heart The great gall of drunkenness slides down the bar wood over wood, the redundancy canal birthing all over again the bartender watering down the drinks, the drinks firing up the neurons lustful doe eyes painted and large as super moons the phone numbers scrawled on bathroom stalls always fakes like hiccups in a wax museum and the drivers are no longer all black in these parts we have made strides but still cannot master the fax machine our necks great albatrosses of skin the gasoline heart pumping hunger to clumsy extremities delicatessen animals shaved down to meat silence every man imagining himself quite the Casanova and never Hitler and the ladies all look signed postcard beautiful under dimmed lights their prospective heavy lifting men all toasted into single syllable slurring I adore this city, the hustle cars like sharks down the avenues back alley blowjobs without teeth the cathedrals and the nightclubs lit up so you can’t tell the difference, people spilling in and out, their own brand of religiosity and the horses over cobblestone provide a certain charm though they have been broken and the sleeping bag bums do not require bedtime stories, only the bottle, and climbing the stairs at 2 in the morning is better than heaven there is a personal sense of accomplishment there that is not present in celestial notions of shortcutting and the bed is glorious, each pillow a friend soon you will be snoring loud as the factory floor before lunch. Ceci n’est pas une pipe, either! There was no robbery. Nothing was taken. The man who said there was a robbery died 300 years ago. He lays in a pit somewhere, happy to be out of work. Relatives? Why yes, there are relatives but there was no robbery. There are bugle boys in decorative knee highs. And thriving band saws too. I lose the logic like smiling milk carton children. Misplace the hand you once touched me with. The peeling skin of time. Ever seen a train stab its way out of a fireplace? I have. There was no one in the room. No obvious light source unless you were to count the mind. But you can’t see the mind, can you? This is not proof of a robbery. The mind may still be there. But the chance it is not, that’s what makes things fun. There was no robbery. Everything given. The Many Stray Cats of Rio The death of Mrs. Waverly was not a surprise in her 94th year but everyone acted like it was trying to see who could shed the most tears. Speaking in low voices when it was not natural. Comparing bouquets of flowers. Showing up with sickly children in tow they had to care for. And then came the matter of the inheritance. The meat and bones of it. Who got what. And she had been one frugal old bird. Came from a good family. Collected her dead husband’s pension for decades. And as the executer of the will read out that 2.4 million dollars had been left to the many stray cats of Rio and nothing to all the rest the faces grew pale. One after the other. With nothing to say. Like everyone was a ghost before their time. I grew up in a small town called Colden just outside of Buffalo, New York. I completed my M.F.A. in Creative Writing - Fiction at California State University, Fresno. I have previously published both poetry and fiction in The Trident, Lipstickparty, and The San Joaquin Review. I currently work as a professor at Medaille College and as a journalist for Mix 247 EDM. Orlando Kept Me Up at Night i. When we slept through my alarm the third day at magic kingdom I woke up to your screams and mad twisting like strings on a loom though you weren’t disturbed at all as the blow and amphetamines still worked themselves out in every bucket of salt and water threading into the off-white sheets. ii. My first memory of achievement that doesn’t involve a podium or plaque but the ever-lovely influenza instead happened when I was eight I closed the Jurassic Park ride by furiously coating the exit gates with ten dollar hot dogs and stomach acid I remember hearing the announcement it would stay closed the remainder of the day I laughed through the blisters of fever marveled that one body could do such a thing. One Pill is a Windmill For Mike, after Marilyn Chin One pill tastes like grit and wheat One pill is blue, oblong like a daisy petal One pill snuffs easier, one gums quicker One pill has black specks, one has red flakes One pill makes you see a windmill One pill takes the windmill away One pill, kissed toxic by dragonfly wings One pill is synthesized with countless, nameless others Understand they killed you more than they would ever save you Understand their vacuity; that broken on/off switch buzzing in the back of your head. Pedagogy for Heroin Abandonment 1. A close friend’s father stayed awake for three days his first time with one deep inhalation of bronzed powder. He wrote essays on physics, created electric gridline diagrams, and scaled the fibrous texture of black lithograph all while working his night shift, digging graves in Cedar Hill. And on the third day his eyes, like a discarded pet abandoned on a country farm, finally closed. ~ ~ ~ 2. I passed a man on Venice Beach, uncouth in ragged leather, caked in caramelized dirt, track marks visible as any wristwatch his eyes red as any shelved wine. He wasn’t screaming, but begging, not begging for money, or even acknowledging the mindlessly vibrant hipsters walking past, but asking himself in curdled, humid bouts of air where his mother was. ~ ~ ~ 3. My third year of undergrad a close friend relapsed after two months, suffering spasms that could’ve evolved into catatonic heart failure and pneumonia from passing out in his car. The night before he went to rehab, we played Cards Against Humanity, a game with where the goal is to play the most shocking, offensive card to get the best reaction. And my same friend played 8 oz. of sweet Mexican black tar heroin, to answer What keeps me up at night?  Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles. it's underneath everything each moment barnacles scraping the sky you and I mirrors of the void hold me tight for the star and for the dart over the board hold me tight for the sword at my throat and hold me tight for the entropy within my bark over the night *** give me everything the sky and the void give me the truth *** these days it's hard to make a living hard to make a killing even everyone keeps crawling out of the grave stumbling drunk and pissed off unable to find a doctor or a home me, I keep fighting the good fight with the coffee percolator putting it in turning it on and watching the water quality drop me, I keep my eye on the sky where we have written clouds these words are gods, small and delightful agents from another planet planet history planet quark whose mustard gas is a mild fart whose righteousness is only mild indigestion and whose rutabagas shine in the sun come in to the shadow of my evening glasses we are making coffee this tree is my friend *** it's enough the stalwart weight of my bones and the sound of talking some startled some weeping some laughing in the evening when I was a boy voices were like planets moving over my head now they are like birds on my shoulders *** these times fall over my head in encephalitic bliss slow and fine tinkling wine a sledgehammer made out of years place the rack back on the bun and sun the fanny till it's done she's got a lot to let out from her gout and her earnest narrative of the people's escape from slavery these times imprison well with the ludicrous swell of the gun of the stars firing the earth into space firing the brain to the hands firing the words to the year *** Now, I must lie to you Though the lie is also the truth. The limits of my range are showing Forty meters hereabouts A certain oven Overhang Strand of trees Some water The chipmunk. No one hereabouts hovers right On the right side Near the exit From the cave It's all one thing, of course I'd be lying--and I am-- If I said there were clear distinctions Marks on the path to tell you where to go A feeling in the bones to mark the perturbation In the stillness of thought But still: Haven't you seen me somewhere before? I thought I knew you too When I saw you walking. *** so shine me on in this bare moonlight whose essence is the sun over you and in your eyes shine me on over the dark whose essence is your soul liquid and fire rambunctious and afraid shine me on into the fire whose name is my own older than me older than the rocks *** each life makes a heart whose circumference circles the void steepled and shaped over the aeon ravaged cursus of you whose hue rouges the lime light of yous prosody or war striking the tent and moving over the light *** Prison, prison prison Prisoner, prisoner Prison my prisoner My prisoner Prisoner! Prison once meant "prize" Hold it in your hands This beautiful thing Shiny Noble Astonishing Concrete and blood This prize Earns rewards Earns friends It keeps you awake at night it sleeps under your bed It marches centuries like water This prize Beacons This mark over your eye I am your prisoner I am your prison *** the right goes up and down spinning thread making sounds over my back, fine wires sketch other sounds: years and years. Everything I want is far away, And all that's near is so dear I fear it; Why should I love these simple things so easily taken away? What is it I've been listening to, Since I was a boy? *** bent right our reaver smokes the grave craving gravity some theater or the nearness of now some headache or music the bastion of the sky flirting with events rash and diligent exploding colors over the mast of the forest whose barren burden deer or birds blacken the midnight of their passing enrichment inside the snow-filled winter filled with the blessing of agony minutes mirror over the roof where he stares at me ears flipping our reaver banes and bones the back and brain bullets and graves pull the curtain and declare the voice god and your arms props run into the snow *** For Roberto Bolano Poets chew on my balls And climb over my back Swing from my hair Dangle over my grave. The poets are watching the sky To see what is written on it And they are playing basketball, with a telephone. Poets have come over to stay in my house. They have found the food, and are cooking it, on the roof. They will not give me any of it. Also, they are reading my books and are complaining. The poets are angry about reality It is not conforming to their expectations. Some of them make love in the doorway, To prove that reality is wrong. One of them is beautiful, a woman. She will not look at me. Over in the clouds the poets have parked a judicial system Complete with a god and a justice of the peace But no jail They take turns being the prosecutor and the convicted Wearing the haloes. In the kitchen, They have begun to smoke marihuana, And talk about sunsets. Sunsets are boring, they say. And they nod, sagely. I do not want to say goodbye to the poets so I invite them to stay at my house, even though we have run out of food. The socialists have pointed out that the state should have provided food for us; most of us agree except for Jose, who points out it is immoral to eat food. We agree with him also. Outside, it has begun to rain, And we are sad. There is no sadness like the sadness of rain. Like the sadness of their faces, in marble. Thieves before the execution, laughing. *** each light makes a spark in the light where it existed where it is thinking about existing each spark makes a light inside the space where you are sleeping “each light makes a spark” first appeared at Duane's PoeTree blog, Jan. 25, 2017. *** Death to California, USA Death to the Caliph The Successor Death to Sacramento, and Los Angeles Death to all of the Angels And their Gods Death to Turtle Island Death to all the names Death to the King Hold his head in your mind Over the precipice The people are rejoicing In his blood Death to the idea of the idea Death to the trajectory and the orbit Death to the hurry and the wash Death to the flag Ride the bear To the bonfire *** My friend loves me In fire; No telling when What bend Or insist His wrist Or the bark Or the bank the end the turf what worth is the human soul so tired mystical and fragrant with god with the truth whose agency ignites my spirit over this pedestrian park? imagined and nightmarish impossible to imagine his love binds me to the earth who is only a servant of higher things whose mind is the febrile corner of the stars whose dance makes me dance my friend dances too like a bad actor like a haunted house coursing over the mind of a cinema-addict drunk and happy it is all right to know nothing of what came before in evenings like this because well, because it just is and your friend is back leering and elegant a full sport in a dignified failure of a nation. the full value of a huge equation spilling its variables over the paper over the chalkboard over the university igniting the library with sex and footsteps each luminary descends Homer and Faulkner to remind us to keep quiet before the book and the water but Bobby is still singing because he is happy *** beat down the grum who suns the dome of your hearsay who opens the tome of your caress who burns the name of your regret who loves you it's time: stunning and bright limning your body with fire Ashley Swanson has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead. Though originally from Arizona, she currently lives in Iowa, where she teaches writing at William Penn University. When not teaching, reading, or writing, she likes to spend time with her husband (Josh), daughter (Grace), and dog (Wiley). Her work has been published in Midwestern Gothic, 50 Haikus, and Penn & Ink. You can follow her on Twitter at: @AshQSwanson Perspective The professor carries a cup to class. Am I half empty or half full? chalked across blue plastic. Classes carry on. Still, I don’t know. cannot see inside. do not know the answers. keep coming, searching for a sign of what’s inside Am I half empty or half full? Will we ever know? Tinge I like to think I’m Orange. Vibrant, distinct, fresh peeled clementine in the afternoon but not always so sweet darker too, deeper burnt orange, terracotta. Dust kicked up by wild hooves mingling at desert’s dusk I’d like to think I’m that, but I’m really the color of cheddar cheese not even the sharp stuff that leaves its mark on your tongue more predictable mild cheddar Mac ‘n Cheese orange Goldfish cracker orange But it’s okay My daughter loves those things. Shine
Sparkle, my dear. Shine with the heat of all that you are Exude radiance Glitter falls around you a Christmas snowglobe You, Shake the world.  Philip Elliott is Irish, 23 years old and editor-in-chief of Into the Void Magazine. His writing can be found in various journals in nine countries, such as Otoliths, Foliate Oak, Flash Fiction Magazine and Revista Literariedad. His first book, a collection of fictional letters, is forthcoming this year. Stalk him at philipelliottfiction.com. Moths When naked feet found the freezing floor of the bottom I thought of moths and how they seek the light. Is it fear of the dark that drives them, I wonder, or something more primal, like love. For fear is a learned thing, absorbed by tiny brains when watchful, shining eyes see too much. Perhaps to a moth the lure of light is no different than the dark that drags us screaming from the light, nails clawing at everything but failing to snag on the cold ground that disappears faster than the light can reach us. Maybe somewhere, a dazzling lamp spits white blinding light; powerless to resist, a million moths circle endlessly, screaming. Ode to a Weary Soul Kavanagh, I know how you felt With all your outsider aloofness, How the blood sang in your veins When she spun you down Grafton. I know how your spirit shuddered When you gazed into those forever eyes Knowing your time was limited there. I know how it stung, Patrick, when They laughed at your enigmatic Ways, know how desperately you Yearned to escape that infinite exile, That prisoner’s cage, how when You did it offered no release, how the Loneliness stretched on and on and on. I know how you felt, Dreamer, when you Bathed in the light that makes the masses Scream, know how suddenly it fades, Know the longing and the ache for That which can never be revealed. Kavanagh, I know how you Felt when, finally, you said Goodbye, let it all go, When you died. Darkness There is something about darkness & how it waits for you with an open mouth like a saltwater crocodile expending as little energy as possible. Sleek & jagged, perfectly adapted to snatching the unsuspecting, the exhausted, drowning them, devouring them, what need has a crocodile to hurry? Darkness lurks beneath the light, silent but hungry hungry hungry; it blinks once before snuffing you out. shiver any one of them could do it to you again each face half a second from a snarl too many times you ventured out too many times you were bitten these woods are not safe all you can do is shiver the woman in you I have seen you take the strain bear the yoke bear the brunt stumble over, stumble through somehow, a little stronger, somehow, still the same spirited and smiling full of love, and beauty full of hope you are awesome i am amazed even not there you hold my gaze, you, take my breath away a little older alittle cliche' rainclouds and thunder chasing across a sunny day steal the bright snatch the light but not for long alittle surprize a little change alittle bit of silly sometimes crazy, sometimes strange pockets of wisdom, flashes of smart always breathing truths, always heart  Pranab Ghosh is a journalist, blogger and poet. His poems are published in Tuck Magazine, Dissident Voice, Literature Studio Review and this magazine among others. He has co-authored a book of poems, Air & Age. He has also translated a book of Bengali short stories into English. The name of the book is Bougainvillea And Other Stories. He, at present, works from Hyderabad, India. Waiting for the New Leaf
By Pranab Ghosh A leaf is turned Life stares at you… A blank look, from A blank space… You do not know Where to go … what Is in store as you Look back to find An answer. A leaf is turned and There are images Standing side by side… Letters piling up to Form sentences that You cannot read… Nor do you know what The images are. You Try to find meaning… Meaning that will bring Sense back and destroy The uncertain times You are in. A leaf is turned and You find yourself standing In front of a void that You want to fill… Memories come and go… New Year arrives with No new destiny, as you Languish from the bite Of a jobless time looking Ahead to a future that Is all gloom with No visible respite! A leaf is turned; There is cash crunch In the market suffering From demonetization of High value currencies. Till the other day you Had the surety of a Month-end pay cheque Now it is gone as if A dream has come To an end, but the Night ahead is long. You try to sleep to Catch another dream, But you toss and turn. Sweat trickles down Your forehead; what If it is winter? A leaf is turned, And in front of you Stand eager expectant Faces that depend On you. You had brought Smile on those before… You know not whether there Would be smile tomorrow As you wait for another leaf To turn that will bring new Light, new meaning and Smile back to you and Those dependant on you. You wait for the New Leaf! Better Dead Smoke spirals out of the Two fingers… The cigarette burns. You puff at it … one Two… three… four… Five… there is no break; As you exhale a thin Layer forms and Slowly withers into the Night outside. It’s one o’clock. The smoke disappears into The air that embraces A sky without a single Star… without any light That nights otherwise have. You look at it for direction. Is there cloud up there? In the evening the sky was Clear blue. Did you Spot the moon then? Why has darkness, darker Than the night has descended On earth? Why has the Stars gone into a hiding? Why Are there no street lights To illuminate the horizon? Far away beyond the horizon Is there a hint of light? The darkness perhaps is Symbolic of the time That we are in; of the Time that has engulfed Us, where people stand In long queues to take Out their money From the banks and ATMs. A few Of them do not return home With money so desperately Needed by their loved ones! They die while standing in queue! People file pass the dead; They are more anxious to lay their hands on their money than helping the dying. Could the dead not have lived If help was at hand! The dark night outside has no answer; As you stare at the darkness outside, You perhaps are aware that You are alive but, you Are too scared to Acknowledge it. Perhaps You were better off dead, With no queues to stand in, No loans to repay, no family To feed and no urge to Earn a living. Perhaps you Were better dead! Ode to Manhood By Pranab Ghosh He is a high school boy, Stays in apartment block ‘o’ Bang opposite his block oh toy! Lives a model of size ‘zero’. She comes back home at 8 o’clock every evening And removes the curtains of her windows with great yearning! With her mind’s eye she spots The boy, who from his darkened room with camera shots The beauty down to her bare essentials And she contemplates of rescuing from him all her testimonials! The high school boy has gone crazy, Because every evening she sends him into a tizzy With her pleasant undress That puts the boy under extreme duress! Enough of hide and seek Thinks the boy and takes a decision sleek To confront his object of passion, When every morning she goes for her gym session. That morning was out of the world When the boy met the lady up there Right in front of the apartment block With her scarf hiding her lock. The boy could not find his words The lady helped him by unlocking her hair ‘You are lovely,’ blurts the boy, Oh! Thinks the lady this is a nice toy. The game begins in all earnest With the boy giving his dream Every morning a chase in real jest And one Wednesday after the gym They together had ice-cream. This is heaven! This is bliss! Thinks the boy When next Wednesday she gives him a kiss. But how long would last his joy? The lady wanted the boy to be prudent Because she found in her company he grows diffident. The crush is all very fine If it teaches the boy to toe her line. She is a model aspiring Would to become a model be the boy’s yearning? The boy has no answer As he wants to be a photographer. The model and the photographer can work together And be with each other ever after! I am too old for you o boy! To me you are just a nice toy! Together we could be for sure But your romantic dreams You will have to abjure The boy gave it a thought His passion for lens too great For an alternative to be sought. The crush comes to an end With the lady getting a young man to tend! Workman’s Hero Pain in the lower back… Pain in the neck… Pain in the back of the head… Pain in the mind gone numb! They say you are becoming aware, They say you are getting illuminated. I say it’s karma baby, Not only of yours, but others’ too That’s making you numb, As evening sets in. It’s soul-transfer time baby. The dusk will dawn on you. It’s time for some fun baby, As you lay still, Unable to move. It’s Lenon or it’s Marx? Tell me who you want to be? I want to be a workman’s hero That’s all I want to be! Jacob Santos loves church. Especially when he waits outside to sell Pupusas to the departing parishioners. He listens to the stories of his elderly customers which will, later on, be his own. His work has appeared in Eskimo Pie, A Day with Graham-Pa, and Forced Entries. To the Imago Born a child of green the slave of faded beauty destined for transience. Bites advance the plague, everything insight is missed and seems far away. My body melts to a bubbled boil, in silence, like a jilted soup. My wing craves the air, breaking through the glass coffin adhered to the ground. |
ArchivesCategories
All
|
RSS Feed