Two Poems by Jeanpaul Ferro

Southernmost Point

 

After years in Salina , rain-bands drifting

up north toward New England ,

ten thousand days of the monotonous

green flat of Oklahoma ,

taking my family and driving them south,

as south as one can go in the lower forty eight,

where the road ends and life begins,

the southernmost point of Key West—

At the edge of the sea’s shaking helmet,

where dreams swim beneath the shafts of green

water with the rock hind and the juv fish.

A place where you can see Havana

and the Yucatan Peninsula ,

 

hurricanes that float as far north as

the Sigsbee Knolls,

up over land into the Mississippi Delta,

past New Orleans and the flood plains,

past the stars one hundred billion light years away,

blue super giants collapsing into neutron stars,

our heads emptying, calmness flowing,

blue, down into our throats,

peace coming, euphoria, something none

of us have ever felt before—

in the north, on the plains,

in the mountains—

skies full of thunder, every thought

I have ever tried to forget:

father’s coffin being lowered

down into his grave,

that car wreck up on Suicide 6

when I saw her arm hanging out,

seeing her leave me like that,

looking at her when she didn’t look like

herself lying down in that coffin,

all the reasons why we leave sometimes,

all those dry silos full of our abandoned

dreams up north.

 

September Again On East Beach Road

The tourists on bicycles ride half in your way

down the broken up old beach road, these beautiful

seeds floating on high amid the aerial trapeze of

mosquitoes,

station wagons all packed up,

most of the driveways already empty,

swollen roses broken apart in trails below their vines,

all the golden-red haired surfers arriving in a nick

of time,

a half-moon in the sky like all of this is still summer,

a sheen of August at rest over the uncovered parts of

the lifeguard’s tender body,

broken stars suddenly coming out at twilight,

all these wind sails skating across the flat-blue surface

of Ninigret Pond,

A laughing bald guy from Jersey with spider

eyebrows begins to sit there on East Beach as

he stares out at the ghost of Block Island,

the wind getting colder;

the summer flashing by in the blink of his eye.

Jéanpaul Ferro is a novelist, short fiction author, and poet from Providence, Rhode Island. An 8-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Jéanpaul’s work has appeared on NPR, Contemporary American Voices, Columbia Review, Emerson Review, Connecticut Review, Portland Monthly, and others. He is the author of All The Good Promises (Plowman Press, 1994), Becoming X (BlazeVox Books, 2008), You Know Too Much About Flying Saucers (Thumbscrew Press, 2009), Hemispheres (Maverick Duck Press, 2009) Essendo Morti – Being Dead (Goldfish Press, 2009), nominated for the 2010 Griffin Prize in Poetry; and Jazz (Honest Publishing, 2011) nominated for both the 2012 Griffin Prize in Poetry and the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Prize in Poetry. He is represented by the Jennifer Lyons Literary Agency. He currently lives along the south coast of southern Rhode Island . Website: www.jeanpaulferro.com * E-mail: jeanpaulferro@netzero.net

Two Poems by Jack D. Harvey

                                                                                                

Vlad, the Impaler

John Crow,

royal by-blow,
Voyevod of Transylvania,

take this ham,

and eat it;

a pig died for you,

strung screaming on a wire.

Hung on a standard,

black and hairy,

Valeria Victrix

bores into Britain.

Sladnik,

take this golden hand

and shake it;

Mehmet's dark warriors

wait for Byzantium

to tumble

at the little gate.

Bang, bang, Urban's cannons

break the walls,

the lavish halls, the streets;

defeat is here,

the retreat of Constantine

from the west,

penniless, is here;

here he is, dead on his feet;

here he is, facing the foe;

he dies here.

Emperor of the east and beggar;

bargaining with a bad pope

a good king

does what he can.

The rosy shoes,

beloved Pharonic ikon,

fall broken

beneath Peter's ravening cross;

after ripe autumn, the

storms of booted winter.

King Constantine

on his feats,

by default rests;

lost in the east,

he struck wonders

out of his head,

calling argosies to the

last of Byzantium.

Dim, fine, old,

the skin of

his golden likeness

through the dead and

bygone winters

burns our minds still,

like bitter frost.

Black Tuesday, the burning city,

exquisite reliquary,

evolved centaur horrors;

ghosts aghast at helosis

floating from the tombs,

the ruined churches,

saw black Vlad, coffin-clad,

metamorphosed

between dog and wolf;

Vlad, Count Dracula,

a likely bat,

likable as the plague.

After centuries,

now and then,

a church bell or

something like it,

rings in the dawn;

a mystic freshening

calls up the day.

Night abides while

the sun sees all,

widening and widening

his eye.

For the sake of Christ

take my hand,

prince, sever your ties;

this kind land's not forever.

Zama

Hannibal at Zama;

among the cannibals

an eye as fierce as any.

A quick revenge

proved slow as sand

in an hourglass;

the swamps, the lake,

like dreams

on the long marches

back and forth

across the Roman boot.

Elephants wonder

how many there were to

defeat, again and again;

so many legions,

beast against beast.

Then a pause.

Loss follows loss,

an old general

makes his last stand;

unfortunate palaver

at the end;

then slaughter

complete as a harvest.

Down the drain

goes Carthage,

gone for good,

and history can't tell

us what was

left among the ruins,

and what was not left.

We see Cato's fields of salt,

the old Greek

tells us a thing or two,

sharpening his point,

and then

blue skies

under which

Hannibal

paints with red paint.

The bodies glisten

at Zama

the bodies glisten;

and then zebras

and then the brimming sand.

Jack D. Harvey is retired and lives in a small town near Albany, NY. Old enough to have been properly educated in the classics, he has been writing poetry most of his life. He hopes there is still some audience for poetry although he is aware that poets serve at a ruinous shrine and that the public ear is not and may have never been at their disposal

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

A Poem by Peter Marra

local police records of a criminal

unusual remarkable winner of beauty contests

a thing

antiques in memory screaming

past loves weeping

the style spectators of novels

and striptease artists. the watcher travels alone

works in solitude.

dancing schemata dictates what they perform.

in front of 13 spectators sinning continuously

watching the mask of rage.

mixture of fiction dancing way deep into the dark

of a day-glo wooded area

that’s where they found the corpses.

she was boasting tattoos depicting

times square smut dreams

bump & grind bump & grind

she dictates a story

her elders’ bodies sleep beneath cool dirt

eyes wide open shallow covering it’s

a crime reporter’s wet dream

as she rests with the moist machines

undressed. the video monitors suck the life out.

dance the dance out.

the dj impaled but spinning lps spastically

shoot to kill

shoot to kill.

kill to live

buzzing pussy

“I heard steel hoofs”

her fingers – she enjoys the taste of gunpowder residue

the forensic evidence that she’s so proud of

she told them all about it and

slowly laughed in that crackly voice

that makes her so endearing. her wet smile -

the perfect skin for the sublime reign of terror

“reflections, reflections”

“my face twisted in a

reflecting crimson desire”

a crowd watches in the seedy motel the place she loves

antiques in memory screaming

past loves weeping

again, no sun up there

again a new sky fresh birth

look in the bar mirror curved neon purple

skin color eyes

watched wet lips

the train will be leaving soon

another town another marker

“a real gone bitch baby.

slinky trippin’ it’s a gravesite down.”

she heard about the door while watching the movie

at variety photoplays

it was a long time ago campy tonguing

pain stab wounds in

wounds

simply added

in the porn house of sublime renderings

harness around herself.

as her mouths spit dreams

she walked away and she kept going

until she was alone on the horizon

and the beat grew steady

and the beat grew steady

a rhythm queen lost

Originally from Gravesend Brooklyn, Peter Marra lived in the East Village, New York from 1979 to 1993 at the height of the punk – no wave music – art rebellion.Peter has had a lifelong fascination with Surrealism, Dadaism, and Symbolism, some of his favorite writers being Paul Eluard, Arthur Rimbaud, Tristan Tzara, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry Miller. His favorite artists are Salvador Dali, Felicien Rops, Dante Rossetti and Amedeo Modigliani. Peter also cites Roger Corman and Russ Meyer as influences. He has had approximately 100 poems published either in print or online. His published work may be viewed at www.angelferox.com

A Poem by Neal Whitman

Bottled Poetry

In the program notes for the performance

of Edouard Laio's Symphonie Espagnole, Opus 21
we found our wine for the post concert repast.

A bottle of 2005 Pesquera Ribera del Tinto Reserva.

The opening is impressive 


brilliant passage with languorous segments


unexpected strong beats for a hesitating effect


preserves the structure


closing is a mélange of surprises


and pays final obeisance to Spain –


Spectacular

Neal Whitman lives with his wife, Elaine, in Pacific Grove, California, and in nearby Carmel both are docents at Tor House built by poet Robinson Jeffers in 1919. He likes to recite poetry in public, combining his words with Elaine's Native American flute. Neal is the 2012 White Buffalo Native American Poet Laureate and winner of the 2011 California Honor Scroll Senior Poet.

A Poem by Valentina Cano

For Shadow

 

A goodbye written in water

moved through me.

A chase of words

and things I’d like to have

said and done for you.

I breathe through this night

with the leftovers of you

at my heels.

They have taken over my room,

my house,

so there’s not a spot

that won’t tear skin from my limbs.

There’s only goodbye left,

I know,

just the tail of our time together

to try to wrap around us

as we are yanked apart.

 

 

Valentina Cano is a student of classical singing who spends whatever free time either writing or reading. Her works have appeared in Exercise Bowler, Blinking Cursor, Theory Train, Cartier Street Press, Berg Gasse 19, Precious Metals, A Handful of Dust, The Scarlet Sound, The Adroit Journal, Perceptions Literary Magazine, Welcome to Wherever, The Corner Club Press, Death Rattle, Danse Macabre, Subliminal Interiors, Generations Literary Journal, Super Poetry Highway, Stream Press, Stone Telling, Popshot, Golden Sparrow Literary Review, Rem Magazine, Structo, The 22 Magazine, The Black Fox Literary Magazine, Niteblade, Tuck Magazine, Ontologica, Congruent Spaces Magazine, Pipe Dream, Decades Review, Anatomy, Lowestof Chronicle, Muddy River Poetry Review, Lady Ink Magazine, White Masquerade Anthology and Perhaps I'm Wrong About the World. You can find her here: http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com

A Poem by Patrick Lawrence O'Keeffe

The Shame

Donny Bellose

in oversize brown shoes
whose ill-fitting clothes
bore the tincture of rags
fetched me from the playground
back to the cafeteria to
First Graders’ lunch table supporting
a wet dish-cloth sheen
and a solitary half-cup of milk.
It wasn’t mine.

Sister Saint Ildephonse
arms crossed under regulation bib
gray-eyed me over the line in her glasses.
Shrouded wing slowly unfolded
extended an accusatory finger.
She pointed at the cup.
It wasn’t mine.

My insistence drew her approach

her upraised chin and two gray eyes
enlarged through close-up
half-moon sections of lenses.
Coarse fabric of her habit
inches from my face
threatened envelopment
in dark mystic pleats and female folds
perfumed in erasure dust
and confiscated gum.
It wasn’t mine.

Young man—refuse not your cup.

Hovering above—hands on hips—
words parsed through teeth and lips
pronounced the shame
a poor farm child
wasteful of the charity given him.
I grasped the vessel and closed my nose.
Accepted the bitter assault
forced to consume
lukewarm liquid leftover.
It wasn’t mine.

Poor farm child?

What would Sister know
of my family’s wealth?
Of Princess the black-face Jersey
whose abundant udders
morning and afternoon
in the musk of oats and summer silage
tendered pails of pure silk—
favored one kept back from the dairy herd
my father had been forced to sell.
Unable to prolong the struggle
constricted throat at long last opened
relieved my breath of its denial.
And so I smelled the ragged smell.



Patrick Lawrence O’Keeffe is a poet and freelance writer. Raised on a Pennsylvania dairy farm, he resides in Port Clinton, Ohio, with his wife Karen. Published materials include humorous Op-Ed essays in the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune, book reviews in the Morrow County (Ohio) Sentinel, poems in the Blue Lake Review and Erie Wire, and self-published works of poetry and fiction. When he is not machining crankshafts on the evening shift, he scribbles verse and stories in a red pocket notebook. A participant in the Firelands Writing Center, he reads his poems at Mr. Smith’s Coffee House in Sandusky, Ohio.

A Poem by Seamas Carraher

The Murderers Indicted

Murdered by schoolmasters: the shape of

geometry, our geography,

the art of bodies, their growth and biology,

both scrambled and unscrambling.

Murdered by schoolmasters

(with tongues twisted and ears deafened):

cultivation, the lives of animals, the

eloquence and statesmanship of trees,

the secrecy of secrets, their mystery,

this language we lost,

(more tongues tormented by schoolmasters)

and this mouth that lost it,

and loss, left now in its abandoning

and in its place,

left decent and desperate, survivors.

Lost to policemen and judges, history,

justice, our love of peace, freedom from revenge,

in a darkening sky this dialogue,

arms to wrap the human heart in,

lost now, continual and relentless,

to keep losing

in a time without hands

for all their cruel burning.

Murdered by the family: love, the

rhythm of breath in copulation,

murdered: this wife, her husband, these children,

(in a circling hardened in contracts)

the arrangement of furniture (physics and astronomy)

the creation and renewal of order,

its destruction,

the removal of dust from brains,

the human embrace, and these same arms

to hold it,

its protection, curvature, coupling,

and these arms, (these same strong arms splintered and

fragmenting,

and in its place:

education, its repetition, compulsion,

dumb authority, and the boots of

the generals.

Lost to the shopkeeper:  arithmetic, instinct,

the light of brotherhood on this dark journey

road, pass and map of humanity,

the content of names, life and death, its simplicity.

Replaced by hunger, corrosive, logical,

accounted for, weighed, balanced, credited

and in their place:

dull creatures of theology, of religion,

of bargain and theft,

of profit and flesh in pounds and ounces,

in ingots, reserves and economies,

in world-bank and stock exchange,

in railroad and ovens,

no longer our human, nor love, nor loss,

only hair, teeth and gas, vermin,

in sales, reductions, starvation and famines

and the hearts sharing, ands our mingling hearts,

shipwrecked and ragged and in the dark night,

and the hand that gestures is murdering

and murdering it contains in its loss

and in its continuing with all my shells

its cold losing

and mine and ours, O my love, and all loss,

daily, eternal, relentlessly,

loss like a festering, perpetual,

like a theology.

Lost by all rulers, popes, bishops, and

politicians:

the skill of wisdom

the love of truth

the nurturing of growth and its mystery,

the friendship of love,

the healing of sorrow

all the journey and our travelling upon it,

and in its place: rentmen, servants, landlords, surgeons,

and in its place: priests, accountants, clerks and doormen.

Lost ourselves by the weight and complicity of loss,

our own face, features both familiar and strange,

a place of our own, a home to nest in,

refuge, shelter, this heart and its feeling,

that other that is part of me,

that me who is circumnavigated by the other,

my own self and its other,

my coming and going,

and its parents, brothers, sisters, comrades;

lost my life and lost my death,

and in its place only dying, perpetual, continual,

like fog in its freezing,

lost all middles, beginnings, circumferences, limits,

all murdered, my desire murdered,

my length and breath dissected,

my ugliness sanitised and made sterile,

smell, sweat and sex strangled,

and in its place, (this roofless place)

these schoolmasters, this family, these shopkeepers,

surgeons, popes, bishops, all rentmen and officials,

marching in their coarse armies

across our dead breathing.

Lost, finally, in my murdering,

this simple mouth and its speeches through the teeth,

its longing for my returning,

wanting it back

in days without measure and the chains breaking,

and its longing and our returning

triumphant

in our homeless way

onward.

Séamas Carraher was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1956. He lives on the Ballyogan estate, in south County Dublin, at present.

Recent publications include poems in Bone Orchard Poetry, Istanbul Literary Review and Pemmican. Previously his work has been published in Left Curve (No. 13, 14 & 20), Compages, Poetry Ireland Review, Anthology of Irish Poetry and the Irish Socialist (newspaper).