Three Poems by Simon Perchik

On the way up this darkness
must sense it's more wax
letting the varnish take forever

though you count how high
a second time--these selves
aren't restless enough, here

for the fire all wood is sent for
--in every room! caskets
stacked as if from behind

the wall would reach around
smelling from bark, roots
and the uncontrollable embrace

heating your cheek the way rain
returns to lower its face on the dirt
that never moves these boards

kept open for a dry rag
all night rubbing your  forehead
darker and darker, almost there.


*

From just dampness, nourishment
and rust seals the bolt
in place--the carriage

already there and nearby, it rains
though you take hold a single spoke
as if the enchanted palace

stopped moving--why is it
a parent favors the weak one
and the crib early on

strengthened with blankets, around
and around the way they dance
in fairy tales scented with midnights

with a gate half iron, half
this wrench, its gardens, ponds
no longer coming apart.


*

Between two fingers
you expect a knot, the string
is used to breaking its fall

the way her shadow
still opens the Earth
for a last look

follows your every move
--even with the sun
you wrap this small box

are carried off
by an icy stream
tighter and tighter, the cover

beginning to close, first
as snow, years later
over your lips already distances

and mountain peaks taking hold
though the mist inside
is not the water you drink

lets you say something
in secret, close to the ground
emptied out in the open.

Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.  His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013).  For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled "Magic, Illusion and Other Realities" please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com

A Poem by Richard Schnap

Testimonial

These are the grey days
When the skies of our minds
Are perpetually overcast

When the books we read
Are filled with blank pages
By anonymous authors

When the clocks that mark
The passage of time
Don't have any hands

When we ride on buses
Only to return
To where we started

When we listen to songs
That all sound the same
Bursts of white noise

When we hear voices at night
And find it's us talking
To someone who's not there

Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publications.

Three Poems by Jonathan Beale

We Walked Along the Embankment at 14:35 in the Rain After a Night Out in the West End

There is a collection
Of whispers
Beneath the iron
Bridges under every
Doorway.  Beneath

The silken image
Of what was to come.
As necessary as the air
We breathed, or the films
We saw or even the books we read

We walked on jumped--
The night bus
Into the heartless carcass
Of the night.
Until the sun rose and broke the spell.



The Cemetery of Unlived Lives

Passing by these staid walls,
of the cemetery of unlived lives.
Here the wailing bounds over
filling the days left unfulfilled.

Over that far crumbled wall
lays the root of the days of every
lost dream.  Those unfulfilled
vessels--lay dark, hollow, and

spent as the echo's remind the consciences
of the "what could have been" and the
"what ifs, what ifs, if & only ifs," words
drowned out--in the lost days.

In this place of now; the nominal rents,
where all investments have run dry.
Ideas from then are still around
in their idols, jokes, and poetic madness.

Their engines have spent their days.
On waiting for tomorrow and tomorrow
pausing no longer, as the voices of the
now ignored.  As the rest walk into tomorrow.



On the Edge of Things

     -- after Edge of a Wheatfield with Poppies, Vincent Van Gogh, 1887

As we sit on the edge of things--the ground consumes us
And then casts us back, and back, and back again.
Or at least me--
The thick, thick wheat swamps us--we drown
from below--drawn down and down.
Histories grow--and cannot cure.
The seed that should produce the perfect fruit
leaves just imperfections.

The trees offer some solace
a shore from the seas of morning coffee cup.
We never go to drink the evening wine.

A Poem by Sandra Anfang

Mercury

What two-faced god
split your psyche at the midline
trained your right foot as a helpmeet
fitted you with wings
to rush triage to the beachhead,
a telegram to the worried,
arms to the loveless?

Your left foot
bound at the ankle
pulled askew
embarks on the road not taken
glazed in quicksilver
decimated by fractions
and in the effort to be held,
unleashed upon the world.

Thimersal, your doppelganger
seeps into veins
in the spirit of succor
preserves vaccines
the shelf-lives of drugs
Big Pharma's bottom line.

What Janus head made you dark and light
draped you in shadows.
Blame it on the Gemini moon's waning smile
that turns you retrograde,
unhitched 'til conflict reigns.
Entropy loosed upon the world.

Sandra Anfang is a Norther California teacher, poet, and visual artist.  She is the author of four self-published poetry collections and several chapbooks.  Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Poetalk, San Francisco Peace and Hope, West Trestle Review, two Healdsburg Literary Guild anthologies, The Tower Journal, Corvus Review, River Poets Journal, Clementine Poetry Journal, and Spillway.  She has a chapbook forthcoming in 2016 from Finishing Line Press.  Sandra is a new California Poet/Teacher in the schools and is the founder and host of the monthly poetry series, Rivertown Poets, in Petaluma, CA.  To write, for her, is to breathe.

Three Poems by ayaz daryl nielsen

Young snowboarders upon the rash enthusiasm
of youthfulness, splashes of light in the alpenglow,
making mistakes, adjusting with a sense of the
genuine and moving us further into the sacred.



diaphanous kiss

as poem becomes the presence it needs to be,
with a light caress of my heart and best thoughts,
it softly thrums "bless you, my love, my soul . . .
bless you."



Sinews of the primeval goddess
stretch and shrink in their sentient
engagement with all dimensions of
earthen interaction, the visceral
foreshadows of an ageless embrace.




ayaz daryl nielsen, husband, father, veteran, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs), hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (25+ years/127+ issues), homes for poems include Lilliput Review, Jellyfish Whispers, Cattails, A Hundred Gourds, High Coupe, Shamrock, and online at bear creek haiku poetry, poems and info (translates as joie de vivre).

Three Poems by David Subacchi

Wood Pigeons

Wood pigeons as fat as chickens
Have been our companions
For so many years,
Waking us each morning
With their monotonous calls,
Perching on TV aerials,
Scratching through guttering
Asserting authority

When we shout angrily
Or wave our arms
They cock their heads
With an air of superiority,
So we feel like scarecrows
That have failed
To demonstrate competence

Wood pigeons as fat as chickens
More confident than eagles
Intimidating our garden
Claiming it as their territory,
Flying without fear
Treating with disdain
Any attempt at opposition.



Witch to Witch

The black pointed hat
Is ludicrous,
The ragged cloak
Beneath contempt,
The ugliness of my face
A vindictive insult,
The broomstick
On which you say I ride
A preposterous fantasy

My head is often uncovered
I wear what you wear,
My looks are not unattractive
I drive a sports car
Sometimes a limousine
From place to place
Observing the Highway Code,
I break no laws
My mind is free and clear

Why would you have me
Casting incoherent spells
A scapegoat for all disasters
Babbling vulgar incantations,
Communing with the devil
Inscribing runes
Binding waxen images
Esoteric, secret,
The stuff of teenage fiction

Look into the mirror
I return your gaze,
My eyes are as open
As the thoughts in your head,
Speak my name
In a whisper if you must
I will not betray you,
We are bound together
Witch to witch.



Next Time

I wore a grey suit
With blue shirt
And narrow tie
To be professional
But relaxed

You managed it
Much better
In floral top
And slacks

We started
With pleasantries
Chose a quiet table,
I said "It's been awhile"
Collected the menu
Like a clerk
Would fetch a file

I knew what
I wanted anyway,
You did too
You didn't have all day

So we had "lite bites"
Washed down
With wine
Some coffee
To finish off

You paid the bill
I said "Thanks"
Got your text later
Saying
"It's your turn
Next time."



David Subacchi lives in Wales (UK) where he was born of Italian roots.  He studied at the University of Liverpool and his two poetry collections First Cut (2012) and Hiding in Shadows (2014) are published by Cestrian Press.  He writes in English, Welsh and sometimes Italian.  You can find more information about David and his work on http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/davidsubacchi

Two Poems by Herb Guggenheim

Drugged

The last time you took Ambien,
you were on vacation in Vancouver, British Columbia,
staying at a small respectable hotel.

Your wife was asleep and you were asleep
but, at a certain moment,
you got up--

perhaps to use the bathroom,
perhaps driven by some other imperative in your dream--
and the story gets murky after that.

You must have gone through a doorway--
and the door must have locked behind you--
and you must have felt that you couldn't get back in.

So you went forward--
down a long hall
then through a second doorway,

down a flight of stairs
then through another door
that also locked.

You're not sure what happened after that
but, when your feet hit the cold pavement
and you felt the cool spring breeze against your ass,

you woke up enough to know
that you were standing outside
in a foreign country

wearing nothing but a t-shirt
and that a busy 24-hour McDonald's
was just two doors away.

Peering in through the hotel's glass door,
you could see that most of the lobby lights were off--
the front desk, dark.

Without the benefit of glasses,
you squinted at the instructions on the hotel entry system
then punched in the designated code.

A man picked up.
"I was sleep walking," you carefully explained.
"And I'm standing here not wearing any pants."

After a thoughtful silence, he asked for your room number,
your name, your wife's name then said,
"I'll be down."

Eventually,
he came and let you in,
walked you to the elevator,

put in his card key,
pressed the button for your floor
then jumped back out as if you were a monster.

You ascended to your floor
where your sleepy wife met you,
wrapped you in a blanket,

and brought you back to your hotel room
where you immediately fell back into bed.
In the morning, at first, you thought you'd dreamt it

but when you asked your wife,
she told you that you hadn't.
Now, reflecting on it,

you realize that life propels us forward
and that all the doors behind us click shut.
We can't go back.

In a way, you think,
we're always standing naked at the door--
our bodies roused by an insistent breeze.





Hell

1.  Theology

You're six
and, one rainy afternoon when school lets out,
you go to Karl Mueller's house to play.
Karl sits behind you in first grade
and knows a bunch of fascinating stuff.

You leave your muddy sneakers on the doormat
and hang your yellow slicker in the bathroom.
Karl's mother calls the two of you into the kitchen
and serves you each a glass of carrot juice.

You're pretty sure you hate the way it tastes
but Karl gulps his down so so do you.
After you have swallowed the last swallow,
you thank his mom and follow Karl down
a narrow flight of stairs into the basement.

His playroom is musty, dark, and lined with heavy books.
He's pushed his toys to one side
and the floor is strewn with ragged notebooks and thick black crayons.

You and Karl speak of many things--
kickball, The Jetsons, chewing gum--
but at some point the discussion turns to fear
and Karl asks you what you are afraid of.

"Ghosts," you say.  "And sometimes scary monsters."

He studies you and ponders your response
then removes a heavy volume from a bookshelf.

"There's only one thing that really scares me--" he says.
"--The Devil."
With this he begins leafing through the book.

"Who's the Devil?" you ask.

And he shows you a picture of a blood red figure with horns and claws and a leering wicked face--
a figure so hideous, so revolting
that a cold wave of terror washes over you.

"Do you know how you meet the Devil?"  Karl asks.

"No," you say, trying to contain your fear.

"If you sin and don't ask for forgiveness--
if you sin, you go to Hell.
That's where the Devil lives.

"Hell is a land of fire.
It isn't like a camp out or a party--
something you look forward to then it happens then you go home.

"No.
Hell is a place where you burn--
where you're tortured and whipped by the Devil
and the torture doesn't stop.
Once you die and go to Hell, it's like you're still alive only you're dead but not really.
Because
when you're in Hell
you keep burning and you keep getting whipped and tortured, whipped and tortured
over and over and over again.
And it never stops.

"Think about what it would be like to just keep burning," your friend whispers.

And you think about when you accidentally touched the red hot burner of your mother's electric stove.

"Imagine your face pressed against the burner of
your mom's electric stove," your friend whispers as if he knows your every thought.
"Imagine your cheek right up against that burner."

Then he holds up the picture of the Devil once again
and you have to look away.
You're terrified and want him to stop talking.

"Then he holds up the picture of the Devil once again
and you have to look away.
You're terrified and want him to stop talking.

"Then imagine,"
he continues,
"that it's not a burner but a giant waffle iron and that the Devil is pressing down hard so that you're burning on both sides--
your skin sizzling like strips of bacon in a frying pan.
And you stay like that for all eternity."

"Won't you burn to death?" you ask.

"No,"
your friend whispers,
"because you're already dead!
You burn in Hell for all eternity.
You
never
stop
burning."

So you walk home at four in the afternoon
and you're afraid.

2.  A Counterargument

When you get home, you ask your mother if she's ever heard of the Devil
and she says, "Yes.
That's a myth that some people believe in.
But in our religion we don't believe in the Devil.
It's just a story."

"Well, what about Hell?" you want to know.

"We don't believe in Hell either."

"Then what happens after we die?"

"After we die everybody goes to Heaven," she says.

But you're strangely unconvinced.

3.  Fifth Grade

When you're in fifth grade, you notice Katie Philpotts in the far corner of your classroom.
And you notice that she's suddenly developed breasts.  And,
without being too obvious,
you look over at her as much as you can.
And at some point you pop a giant boner
and you have to take deep breaths to make it go away.

At home,
after you have your bedtime glass of milk,
you go to bed
and you're lying face down, your face buried in your pillow.
And you start to think about Katie Philpotts.

And,
once again,
your peter springs to life
and you notice that it feels incredibly good
to rub against the mattress.

Then you think,
What if this is a sin?
And what if there is a Hell?
What if Mom is wrong and everyone else is right?

And then the image of Katie Philpotts fades away
and in its place you see that blood red Devil that Karl Mueller showed you years before.

4.  The Adult

As an adult you think about death a lot.
You're ostensibly an atheist and you say that when you die you die.

Then you think of all the bad things you've done--
lying,
placing your own self-interests above those of others,
taking pot shots,
employing hurtful sarcasm to make you look good and everyone else look bad.

And you think about that leering Devil
and the idea that--
if your first grade friend was right--
you could burn for all eternity.

Isn't that what you secretly believe?
Don't you pray on airplanes when the weather's rough?--
a sure sign that you believe in God,
atheist though you profess to be.

Then you think, Nah,
that's ridiculous.
Surely, Hell is--
as you've heard C.S. Lewis once suggested--
reserved for big time sinners,
not small fry like you.

Then you think:
But what the fuck does C.S. Lewis know?
He could be in Hell right now for underestimating the scope of his own sin.

The Devil, you figure, is right there in your mind--
or else God is
(and he's telling the Devil what to do).
And one or the other of them is thinking:
He thinks he's going to get out of it--
just like C.S. Lewis did.
How misguided.
What a fool!

Herb Guggenheim's poems and short stories have appeared in a number of magazines, including the Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Quarterly, and Gargoyle.  He's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net Award.  Mr. Guggenheim's rhymed poem "Countdown" received an honorable mention in the 2015 Writer's Digest annual writing competition.  He is the author of Sunset at the Hotel Mira Mar (Infinity Publishing, 2011) and the chapbook, Strange Encounter at the Shakespeare Motel (Finishing Line Press, 2015).