Excerpt From Diatomhero: Religious Poems I was two places at once: One side of my body bleeding indistinguishably into Oneness, like an inkblot, The other sketching the actual picture, Past and present lives Back to back, in a Star Wars trash compactor. After awhile I opened my napkin and recognized myselves, Two Versailles rivals turning fans to each other’s disdain, A flattened hydra peeling itself off a window, “Beast turning human,” like Nora Flood’s lover. But there were no sounds, Only subtitles, Languages rushing at me, like insects Suddenly displaced from recognition, Czech buzzing into my left ear, like a swarm of flies, German booming out into the forest, The dullness of tomato plants Buzzing with flies That had no sound or life In either dimension, A photograph of what my perception had looked like when it had been mine. So I didn’t know if I weren’t a Soldier, hidden among the tall marshes, Dressed in one of those grass suits Or Miss Jessel, beckoning across the river: A brute’s opaque smear coming up the other side of a retina filmed over As frosted glass, behind which he still moved with his candles Suddenly running clear, Like the eyes of the first people Before ancestry polluted them Little shoots of green coming up, in the Original Dark Eye of Jerusalem To make hazel With its hope of fecundity through the earth. They said, after the war, we lost each other I said, after our deaths, we lost each other Refugees, displaced persons I had no way of knowing I’d not just picked an armful of my Daughter, reborn as lilies For an Easter bouquet, That my son wasn’t a dog Busily digging his old human bones up out of the earth And gnawing on them; One of a flight of Canadian geese Circling over the airports where the dying swallow their memories as drug mules, shit them out and break them open in the next life, Like Aesop’s golden egg The freezing looking into photographs of a sun that can’t warm them The starving looking into photographs of food they can’t eat Knowing that they can no longer stretch out the past As a frugal mother stretches out meat and potatoes From casserole to stew. With ever more mouths to feed, Until five hundred lives cannot consume the rations for one, And we are too menny. But even in one life When I said, “I can’t live without you” It meant a lifespan in a body I could not live without that kept changing Into a different body. As if I were committing adultery On the you of 21 with the you of 51. Appropriating someone else’s love And calling it mine So that, at eighty I couldn’t wish to stand dazed, in the photograph of myself on the street we lived on in 1950 A sepia handkerchief that had once been red in my lapel Without simultaneously being a widower, lying awake nights, weeping Shooting blanks into the air That might fertilize whatever was Left of you, in the air around me, Engendering little ghost children Who would peer at me, noses against “the transparent glass of the world” Like urchins at Christmas displays Faces all plastered with ectoplasm, like sticky jam. Prelude to the moment When a soldier, dying on the battlefield in ancient Greece Flows into his reincarnation as a Girl, blonde and Norwegian, in the high country His life wrenched out of him like a discus That goes flailing off to the Lord Trailing roots, black against the sky As reincarnation only on the Rebound, like love The solar eclipse picking up our images like a Xerox Albeit in a delayed assembly; In “millions of tiny pieces,” like Mike Teavee The invisible, becoming durable as humidity, And just as scientifically proven: an element inciting a reaction: sweat, an increase of insects, Anything indigenous to a climate And just as wonderfully taken for granted By those who exist under it Dying to and in that as naturally, casually as: the sun. We knew it rose on the other side of the world But we didn’t care Any more than any more than a sluggish reptile in Texas Is aware of the vast majesty of the land stretching around it To Nebraska, or The Rockies, or the Badlands Or anywhere but the corner on earth in which it is tucked away. Plants in Australia Turn to the sun only on the continent they’re indigenous to and know no more about Antarctica than the polar fishes about the Kalahari Any more than two incarnations of the same person, one centuries ago, one now Her hair flying back into his face like a Springsteen song Know which is “the real” them Stuffed with mirrors Donning contact lenses with every other life, The original color always under the new; Each eye reflecting the life it inhabits: A fret of Russian cloud sliding across your iris one life, Birds in a perfectly blue sly, en route across Minnesota, in another Genealogy turning on a color wheel The weight of a soul Up and down, like Liz Taylor’s size; Deprivation stuffing abundance into every other life One bloodline exsanguinated, The next offering it a transfusion. Previously published in the collection diatomhero: religious poems (Vulgar Marsala Press, 2012) Lisa A. Flowers is a poet, critic, cinephile, ailurophile, and the Reviews Editor for Tarpaulin Sky Press. She is the author of diatomhero: religious poems, and her work has appeared in various magazines and online journals. Raised in Los Angeles and Portland, OR, she now resides in Colorado. Visit her here. White People Always Want To Tell Me That They Grew Up Poor White people don’t like when you say: white people. White people like to remind you that you are Indian, not black. Black people never say that to you. They make a home for you inside their archives. It is like an elegy. Poverty must be a color but color is like sky. My daddy is a daddy from Africa. An Indian boy from Tanga. He is a papa who stitches eyes together–– a doctor, the only one of his siblings, seventeen in all, to really get out and climb towards the lands that enslaved him. Only white people can imagine a past that was better than now. Only white people have nostalgia. You grew up rich, they say. Your daddy is a doctor. They want me to possess their whiteness, too. They want to spread it outwards like the tentacles of a squid. What they are really saying is: How dare you have what was rightfully mine. I want to say: Squid, my daddy holds storms from a world you’ve never seen. He is a doctor because being a doctor was a way to unbury his dead. I want to say: It is not me you hate. It is that you were not given what whiteness promised you– what your TV said all white people could have. My daddy didn’t have a TV. My daddy is from Africa. My daddy is not a thing like your daddy. Our house was not a thing like your house. Our household was not held by anything you could name. If you swam in it, you wouldn’t even know it was water. Previously published in The Common. Megan Fernandes is an Assistant Professor of English at Lafayette College and lives in NYC. Her work has been published or is forthcoming Rattle, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Common, Thrush, The Adroit Journal, The Boston Review, etc. You can find out more about her work here: https://megfernandes.wordpress.com/ Excerpt from A Single Throat Opens
Dear M_____, I want to tell you a story that never happened. I want to tell it so often truth won’t matter. This is misleading, however. Truth never matters. * Adult children of alcoholics (ACA) lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth. This is the third of thirteen characteristics according to the ACA website. * Dear M_____, Have you ever played the ice breaker two truths and one lie? I’ve played this so many times at different functions, professional or otherwise. It’s liberating. To deliberately lie and be rewarded for it. Here, I’ll begin: My father is an alcoholic. And because he never hit me I believed well into my twenties he was a good alcoholic. Look me in the eyes; tell me where the lie resides. * Melts wax, burns wick and wood, wounds flesh in a little circle. Here, where I pressed a lit match into the skin of my left forearm. “Don’t cry. Your wounds are beautiful if you’ll love mine.”[i] My father, like fire, consumes the thing that sustains him until both diminish to nothing. Now, tell me about your father. [i] from William Matthews’ poem “Oh Yes” (The question: would you like one more drink?) Published in A Single Throat Opens (Black Lawrence Press, 2017) Meghan McClure lives in Washington. Her work can be found in American Literary Review, Mid-American Review, LA Review, Water~Stone Review, Superstition Review, Bluestem, Pithead Chapel, Proximity Magazine, Boaat Press, Black Warrior Review, among others. Her collaborative book with Michael Schmeltzer, A Single Throat Opens, will be published by Black Lawrence Press in June 2017. Visit her on Twitter at @meghantmcclure or at her website meghantmcclure.com. BIO: Michael Schmeltzer was born in Japan and eventually moved to the US. He is the author of “Elegy/Elk River,” winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Award, and “Blood Song” (Two Sylvias Press, 2016) his debut which was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award for Best Book of Poetry Published by an Independent or University Press. He earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop. His debut nonfiction book, “A Single Throat Opens,” written in collaboration with Meghan McClure, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press. His work can be found in Black Warrior Review, PANK, Mid-American Review, Rattle, and other journals. Visit him on Twitter at @mschmeltzer01 or at his websitemichaelschmeltzer.com. Grandmother Fugue Stranger, I cross your room Daughter, you cross my room looking you over as I go overlooking me as you go-- to the window overlooking mulberries. the window, at least, sees Your will specifies ashes. how my will has beat this thing to ashes. I am never who you think I am. I am not, you think. I am. I wonder when I will have to arrange So make other arrangements chairs in the shape of a sonnet, for this chair that shapes me like a sonnet. hire a rabbi. It won’t be long. Hire a band. It won’t be long. The rhymes you sang to me as a child The rhymes I sang to you as a child I can only hum now, wordless. I can still sing. Listen. Previously published in River Styx and American Sentencing (Winter Goose Publishing, May 2016). Jen Karetnick is the author of seven poetry collections, including American Sentencing (Winter Goose Publishing, May 2016)--which was a long-list finalist for the Julie Suk Award from Jacar Press--and The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, September 2016). She received an MFA in poetry from University of California, Irvine and an MFA in fiction from University of Miami. Her poetry, prose, playwriting and interviews have appeared recently or are forthcoming in TheAtlantic.com, The Evansville Review, Foreword Reviews, Guernica, The McNeese Review, Negative Capability, One, Painted Bride Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, Prime Number Review, Spillway, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Waxwing and Verse Daily. She is co-director for the reading series, SWWIM (Supporting Women Writers in Miami). The winner of the 2017 Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Prize, the 2016 Romeo Lemay Poetry Prize and the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize, Jen has previously won the Portlandia Poetry Chapbook Prize, two Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Awards and the “Piccolo in Your Pocket” Contest from the Alaska Flute Studies Center. In 2016, her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and two "Best of the Net" awards, and featured at The Fourth River, JMWW, Yellow Chair Review, Red Bird Chapbooks and "Literary Death Match." She is currently writing a full-length spoken word play, set in Everglades National Park, with the help of an AIRIE residency. She is also working on her 16th book, The 500 Hidden Secrets of Miami (Luster, September 2017). Jen works as the Creative Writing Director for Miami Arts Charter School, teaching grades 6-12, and as a freelance writer, dining critic and cookbook author. She lives in Miami Shores on the remaining acre of a historic mango plantation with her husband, two teenagers, three dogs, three cats and fourteen mango trees. June Since you’ve left, the rains haven’t stopped, running downhill after you, chasing you for your lunch. I’m smoking by that silver bench, drops punching the fug I blow from my pursed mouth. My fingers are stained with you. A tree-root strangles my ankle. I never want to see my father again, the disappointment mask he likes wearing. Your tongue catches that last drop of soju and my lungs constrict of their own accord, and breath is a far country with no visas, no passports. Previously published in Phantom Billstickers Café Reader. Ivy Alvarez's second poetry collection is Disturbance (Seren, 2013). She is also the author of several shorter collections, including Hollywood Starlet (Chicago: dancing girl press, 2015) and The Everyday English Dictionary (London: Paekakariki Press, 2016). A recipient of writing fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle and Fundacion Valparaiso, her work appears in journals and anthologies in many countries and online, with selected poems translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. She lives in New Zealand. www.ivyalvarez.com Eating the Earth And to the flour add water, only a thin stream whispering gathered rains of a reticent winter. And to the flour add oil, only a glistening thread snaking through ridges and ravines of what sifts through your fingers, what sinks, moist and burdened between your palms. And in the kneading hinge forward, let the weight of what you carry on your shoulders, the luster of your language, shade of your story press into the dough. And to the dough bring the signature of your fingertips, stretch the canvas before you, summer linen of wheat and autumn velvet of olive oil, smooth like a map of silence and fragrance, of invisible terrains of memory. And on the dough let the green leaves fall, drenched sumac stars flickering among them shards of onion in their midst. Scatter them as the wind would or gather them in the center of this earth and fold them into the tender embrace of the dough, cool and soft beneath their bodies. And make a parcel of the dough, filled with foraged souvenirs, fold them in, and then again, let their silhouettes gaze back at you. Recall found treasures of hillside wandering; flint, thorn blossom and a hoopoe feather carried home in your skirt. And to the flames surrender the bread, gift of your hands. Grasp its tender edges and turn it as the heat strafes and chars this landscape you have caressed. Some grandmothers sing as they bake, others speak prayers. And let the edges bristle to the color of earth, let the skin of the bread scar. The song of zaatar simmering in its native oil rises up and time evaporates. You are young again, it is spring in the greening valley. *zaatar – wild thyme native to the Levant Previously published in Sukoon and subsequently published in Water & Salt (Red Hen Press, 2017). Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is an American writer of Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian heritage. Her book of poems, Water & Salt, is published by Red Hen Press. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net and her chapbook, Arab in Newsland, is the winner of the 2016 Two Sylvias Prize. Most recently, has work has been published or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Blackbird, Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Crab Creek Review, Diode, and the Rumpus. Lena is a Hedgebrook alum and an MFA candidate at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. To learn more, please visit her web site www.lenakhalaftuffaha.com How To Detangle A Bird Caught In Your Hair First you have to have hair This trend toward baldness negates the problem Once you have grown a luscious mane Gather images on your lion tongue Ripe peaches, sizzle of bacon Crisp campfire scent of an almost winter night Handful of rain, feathers or marbles Details of sunset, sand and fast cars Weave your materials carefully Remember that birds like shiny things The colors and flavors you choose May affect the type of bird you lure Into your hair-nest It helps to know what you’re looking for The hummingbird is popular due to its size And general friendliness The swan is elegant but angry Loons, pelicans and ostriches Are obviously to be avoided With patience, you will eventually find a bird snarled in your hair It might not be the bird you initially had in mind Give it some time. This one may surprise you Protect your eyes and face As you attempt to pet the iridescent feathers Of your albatross or owl. Avoid wearing a hat In the event that you tire of this entanglement The following options are available: 1. Tenderly cut the bird away, like a piece of gum from a child’s hair 2. Start a small fire on the back of your head, and begin to run Previously published in The Common Online and subsequently published in How To Take A Bullet And Other Survival Poems (where the title of each poem has been appropriated from The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook by Joshua Piven and David Borgenich.) Hollie Hardy is the author of How to Take a Bullet, And Other Survival Poems (Punk Hostage Press, 2014), winner of the 2016 Annual Poetry Center Book Award. She teaches writing classes at the SF Creative Writing Institute, SFSU, and Berkeley City College. An active participant in the Bay Area lit scene, she hosts Saturday Night Special, An East Bay Open Mic, and is a founder and core producer of Oakland’s Beast Crawl Literary Festival. Her website is www.holliehardy.com Mary and the Commandments Sometimes there are ten. Sometimes more. They play for an audience of one. Mary and her cursive list of what not to do: Do not wear black lace with extra holes. Do not be the one to lift your silk slip over your head. Raise your hands at the elbow, never the wrist. Keep your interior pink and pleasing: the kitchen counter, the kitchen scissors, the rose-handled wedding gift knives. Never give a gift that is not wrapped--legs around neck, ribbon around box, Champagne in silver foil. When removing your heart for a lover, remember it is not a hat. Your organ should not be worn at the dinner table, is not a common bridal accessory, will not prevent sunburn. Keep the faith, keep a clean house, keep clean underwear in your hip pocket. Commandments as back-up singers, as anti-inflammatories. When following rules, think map. Rules are not maps, but you may still clasp your hands, fall to your knees. Previously published in Emerge Literary Journal. Jill Crammond is a poet/single mom/artist, funding her passion for poetry and feeding her children by teaching art and preschool at an independent school in upstate NY. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and featured in such local community events as Bookmarks: The Memoir Project (Arts Center of the Capital Region), and Write Here: A Mini Conference for Writers (HVWG & Arts Center of the Capital Region). Her poetry has been published in a variety of anthologies and journals, including Fire on Her Tongue (Two Sylvia’s Press), B (Kind of a Hurricane Press), Thirty Days: The Best of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project’s First Year (Tupelo), Classifieds: An Anthology of Prose Poems, Crab Creek Review, and others. I Would Open I have nothing to do with explosions. But there are enough signs in the no-life of stars to make evacuation mandatory. I am as frail as smoke. a landscape of gas and shadows. Expansive. A mystery, unmendable. Previously published in She May Be A Saint by Hermeneutic Chaos Press. Sources: Title: C.D. Wright, a phrase from “Dear Prisoner.” Wright: Deepstep Come Shining, “My Dear Affluent Reader,” and “Dear Prisoner.” Sylvia Plath: “Tulips,” “Insomniac,” “Stars Over the Dordogne,” “Widow,” and “The Rival.” Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of four chapbooks, including Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press, forthcoming, 2018) and She May Be a Saint (Heremneutic Chaos Press, 2016). She is also the co-editor of Thank You for Swallowing, an online journal of feminist protest poetry. Her poems and essays have also appeared in Queen of Cups, The RS 500, Rogue Agent, and Ekphrastic Review. to miss america is to turn twenty-four with an ass that refuses to fit squarely into a string bikini. to miss america is to miss the point of each perky, each taut muscle rippling its way across a wheat field. or to miss the wheat entirely. it is almost an art: paring a strawberry into symmetrical slices for a midnight snack in front of the late night show. amazing how static can fill the mind, the gut. o america, i, too, have a stash of sashes, folded up & boxed, their ribbons too thin now for my frame. you don’t have to tell me: this body is nothing like yours—spindly tower that knows its saunter, knows its shake. you strut down a lit aisle & miss the brush of grass against your knees. god, you’re as smooth as they make ‘em—teeth vaselined like a slip’n slide, you are oil & bronze & glow. miss america, i, too, know about thigh gaps. i know what goes missing, the space between girl and grown. you miss dining room tables, fruit of your labor, warmth in your belly, warmth in your home. i am with you: dried flowers in my hand, the metallic sky dulling your tiara. look at this mud where a meadow used to be. Previously published in Banango Street. Raena Shirali is the author of GILT (YesYes Books, 2017). Her honors include a 2016 Pushcart Prize, the 2016 Cosmonauts Avenue Poetry Prize, the 2014 Gulf Coast Poetry Prize, & a “Discovery” / Boston Review Poetry Prize in 2013. Her poems & reviews have appeared inBlackbird, Ninth Letter, Crazyhorse, & elsewhere. She currently lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where she is the Philip Roth Resident at Bucknell University’s Stadler Center for Poetry, & serves as a poetry reader for Muzzle Magazine. |
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