Dog Days

artwork: ralph murre

Dog Days

by Susan Elbe

July 5

In Utah, no one can sleep.

Millions of crickets five inches deep

trill like frenzied schoolgirls

speaking in tongues. In New York,

tripped alarms slam the air.

Someone wrenches open a hydrant

and blistering streets sizzle with steam.

Here, the heat leaches you of story

and radiance. Hard work, this

mucking through silence and sleep

so seamless no dream can unzip it,

not even an old ghost to tear at its threads

with long fingernails of memory.

July 20

This is how you want it—summer

forever, the sky, blue and lucent

as the moonstone of a baby’s eyes

and clean, white sheets

you lie down on at night,

someone outside on his way home,

whistling an old tune—

See the pyramids along the Nile. . .

while you slowly cross

the wobbly bridge to sleep

and somewhere behind clouds,

the dog star drops

off the edge of this cockeyed earth.

August 1

This is how it is—at 2 a.m. still 80°,

the air murky with dank breath

and fishy lake smell. The carp moon

belly-flopped in the sky. A lignin

of sweat cements you to the sheets.

Angled with shadow, the street

shifts like dream, turns a different face.

Stalling neon thips and fizzles, faded

to the hollow-heart pink of strawberries.

Toward morning, blue crackle, thunder,

rain pattering through the leaves

like a small dog’s toenails on linoleum.

That dumb darling, your huge need,

lazy and bloated with heat, lies

beside you, panting in its thick pelt of fur.

August 2

The cicadas and light this morning

rattle in the leaves like brass keys.

Last night’s rain trickles

from the eaves in long, silver strings.

Shucking sweet corn,

your fingers are slippery with silk.

Daddy longlegs traipse in all the corners.

Already so much starts to fall away

from the deep green, too-lush days

that prickle like stiff crinoline.

Imagine 20 years from now. Then,

with luck, 20 more. Loss is a dry well,

empty pocket.  It needs filling.

August 5

Not yet dusk, not yet

the underwater-blue time,

but the brief half-hour after sunset

when you glow inside out,

your slow-finned heart leaping

clear of fear, worry, what holds it

to this fraught world.

You give the devil his due

each time you care too much

about what doesn’t matter.

Something dark unwinds, snakes

up into the windrowed light.

August 7

Nothing keeps in this weather. Tomatoes

wrinkle and split. Cucumbers soften

and snap beans rust. Salt won’t pour.

The first dream in weeks begins.

God asks me what I want.

I say I’m lonely. Give me poems.

I’m hungry. Can I have the moon?

I say nothing is enough. Let me live

forever this life that exhausts

and scares me witless, yet brings me

daily to my knees in thanks.

But God turns up the underside of a leaf

and there’s death, riding

like a soft cocoon along the vein.

~ first published in CALYX

The Gathering

cover art: emmett johns

The Gathering

by William Taylor Jr.

It was a Monday night at the Jury Room

and maybe it was the beer but

the bartender looked just like

a fifty year old Charles Bukowski

and the guy at the table

with the bikers

could very well have been

Richard Brautigan

in his prime.

I watched as he sat there drinking beer

and telling funny stories.

I lit a cigarette and decided I was

James Dean

and suddenly we had

quite a party going on.

~ previously published in Bar Code (Little Eagle Press)

ANGEL FIRE

photo: sharon auberle

ANGEL FIRE

 by Sharon Auberle

everything we touch turns to a

poem, when the spell is on...

      ~  Linda Pastan

the mystery of cornstalks

murmuring among themselves

a brown-skinned man

in orange serape

walking between them

the slump of his shoulders

tugging at my heart...

from any of these

a poem might grow

but today

there is only the man

light streaming down on him

he, who could be an angel

for all might be holier

than we know

his serape, fiery

in morning sun

the wind lifting it

like wings

~ first published in the Peninsula Pulse

Worry

photoart: ralph murre

Worry

by Morgan Harlow

Worried about wrappings, cardboard laced with

BHT; Styrofoam cups and aluminum trays,

cellophane, Mylar and shrink wrap: the story

of a buddy’s bar pizza, microwaved and served

with the plastic wrap still on, bright patina

coating.

~ first published in cold-drill

BAD LANDS

photoart: ralph murre

BAD LANDS

by John Flynn

Inspired by an oil painting,

“Waiting for a Chinook: the last of 5000.”

by C.M. Russell, known as The Kid

The old cowhand swayed serene

around the potholes. Every sinew

slack in the backseat of his

youngest son’s new Chevrolet.

His elbow high and out the window,

he watched the miles peel away

on the county’s arrow

straight red scoria road.

From a distance the red and

white big touring car kicked up 

cyclones and looked to be

on fire or re-entry from a

junket into inner space.   

From out the side he

assayed his time’s retreat.

Up front the windshield

framed a vanguard

trail of slag waiting to be

churned back into dust.

They lived here by

the thousands then,

in ones and twos,

on farms, in little towns.

Contrails lining up above.

Echoes seeping out from

missile silos underground.

Few folks remain. And

soon these few will

view the remnant herds

of settlers like the

buffalo used to do.      

Emigrants scrape something           

off the top, he thought,           

but not much more. Eventually

the plains reclaim what's theirs,

and plow black ash back

into white boned earth.                         

Charley Kid got it right. He painted it

a hundred years ago and more:

“Waiting…The last of 5000.”

Long shadows slick down the buttes

nearing home. The old man smiled

to himself alone: some say

I don’t recall but know,

I didn’t break down

or tumble off my horse.

Through the cranked down window I

catch the cooling scent of sage and

youth and recollect that

all I ever thought

to be I am.

I make no play

on maybes.

I do still what

I say I will.

I crippled

no one

up but me,

not the country, 

nor the spirits

camped out here.

Those things

I do recall,

and don't regret.                       

~ first published by the Gilcrease Museum of Western Art

Father Writes to Mother . . .

photo: ralph murre

Father Writes to Mother from California

by Jackie Langetieg

I remember Grandmother’s voice

and crickets clicking behind the radiator,

feasting on dust from fresh baked bread

while I lay on the window seat

watching her polish the mound of dough

                        pushing and turning it on its powdery board.

Looking over at me, she dropped

a small plastic doll into the mix

folded and smoothed it into a ball

while she told me of earthquakes

in San Francisco

and how the ground would open

like cut dough,

then fold over a small girl and her mother 

rolling, kneading and sealing them

into the bread of the earth, sent to the oven to bake,

disappearing beneath the cooling crust.

~ first published by the Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Science, and Letters

ITHAKA 2001 - 2008

ITHAKA  2001-2008                                                                                 

by Jim Barnes

                  Hope all your Ithakas are good ones.

                                              --Cavafy

Seems ages on the hill above the rocky point

I have kept my eyes on the horizon where sky

drops to sea. No sign of any ship I do not

recognize, just the ragtag wornout fishing fleet

about to sink. No single sail grabbing the wind

and fifty men at oars to tell us you are back.

This is no Ithaka now you would own up to,

your old wife mad, your queer son gone, your dog

years dead. The old men gathered here like the food

and wine, but do not give a hoot about the place.

You might as well have gone down in the fishy sea:

this is no Ithaka you would want to rule. Still we

hope for your long return, the foolish old friends of

the foolish king who went away to war for fear

of losing what we have lost anyway, although

you, somewhere landbound or adrift on the deep, still

may dream of coming back to stony Ithaka,

to a faithful wife and infant son. Wherever

you are, I send you these heavy words on a wind

that has treated us all badly: there is little

use for you to come back home old and mortified.

Ithaka is not the Ithaka it was. For god's

sake, be strong. We have grown even older hoping.

Perhaps you have found another Ithaka elsewhere

in the wide world, a soft and welcome country that

nourishes you in a way we never can again.

I wish you well, but I must keep on hoping that

you will come back again. You could teach us a way

at least to cope with the thing that has befallen

us. The tourist's shops and the garish touring boats

prosper, but they are in the hands of foreigners.

The breeding cattle prized by Philoitios, bankers

in Pylos hold for the debts Penelope incurred.

The suitors had no staying power when the booze

ran out. No one manned the presses nor tended vines.

Pirates from Samos got the last of goats and sheep

when we tried to take the herds across to Argive

lands. Hardly any of us are left who give a damn

about the state. I am here every day, though hope

runs thin. I know you will return sometime. It is

no Ithaka to brag about. Hope you will bring

our salvation in some form. Yellow gold would help

and medicine that would somehow cure all the pain

of mind and body. We are ill in Ithaka.

~ first published in The North American Review

To Junior

To Junior

by Wilda Morris

You swam in the cup of water our cousin Donn

said a person could drown in. You were the liquid

spotting grandmother’s pillow, Uncle Norman’s towel

that would not dry, the soundless wet circle

always on the dining room table.

You schooled me in fear of swimming holes, lakes

rivers, waves. When Mother took me to the city pool,

you dived from Donn’s cup, tried to pull me under.

Relinquish your power over me, Junior. I can no longer

live in the shadow of your swollen young body.

~ previously published in Encore: Prize Poems 2011

View From a Small Skyscraper

photoart: ralph murre

View From a Small Skyscraper

by David Scheler

An endless flow of headlights

snakes through city streets.

            Sub-atomic particles

            stream out from stars.

Riders stream to a London,

New York or Tokyo.

            Electron bonds with nucleus,

            electricity becomes composite.

The attraction atavistic;

a sense of grand potential.

            Stars spider galaxies.

            Sparks arc across neurons.

The snake of headlights

strings across spider galaxies.

            Genes snake across

            the spidered string of chromosomes.

In this equation, need is fleeting

while desire is a constant.

Chaos is its own precise pattern.

            In this equation,

            potential is the constant

            and the probable is fleeting.

~ previously published in Casting for Meteors

To Paint Forgetting

photoart: sharon auberle

To Paint Forgetting

by Barb Cranford

Gesso a long narrow canvas thickly

and embed a gaggle of dirty bits

of rag, shards of bone, illegible lists.

Smear it carelessly 

with pale tints of some color 

I do not like––ochre perhaps.

There must be a broken grid––

maze after maze leading

to empty rooms without doors.

Lurid bursts of yellow, orange

and red will flash and fade,

throwing fearsome shadows.

A few gray feathers will float down

from a strange bird beating its wings

against the frame, top left.

I wrote down these instructions once,

but I don't remember why.

~ first published in FAR FROM HERE

MASQUERADE

artwork: william marr

MASQUERADE

by William Marr

Walking in the streets

he suddenly realizes

last night’s masquerade

is still going on

Everywhere he turns

he sees a mask

fastened to a face

like a second skin

~ first published in Between Heaven and Earth (PublishAmerica)

Things My Grandmother Told Me

digital art: ralph murre

Things My Grandmother Told Me

by Julie C. Eger

Wash the walls with hot soapy water but rinse with cool and clear.
Don’t rub so hard the paint comes off or the paper peels up.
Wear a hat when you’re out in the sun.
Don’t look directly into the sun
or you’ll burn your corneas and go blind.
Add this much salt to the soup.
Turn away when a man looks at you.
If he bothers you, kick him in the knee.
If he keeps bothering you, kick higher.
Mind your manners at school, especially Sunday school.
Sing your song loud even if you’re off key.
Don’t mind the ones who are always on key,
they don’t know other things.
Pull weeds, not carrots.
This is the way to use a hoe.
This is the way to use a rake.
This is the way to stack wood.
This is the way to use a broom.
This is the way to carry bricks.
This is the way to wash a dish.
This is the way to a fold a towel.
This is the way to fold fitted sheets.
This is the way to make a bed.
This is the way to carry buckets of water.
This is the way to flip a pancake.
This is the way to make beef stew.
This is the way to open a jar.
This is the way to pin your blouse
in the middle where it gaps.
This is the way to pull back your hair
when you are working hard.
This is the way to pull back your hair
when you are working hard to attract a man.
This is the way a whore wears her hair.
This is the way a whore makes a bed.
This is the way to wear your hair
when you want to keep a man.
This is the way to mark your calendar.
This is the rhythm to follow when you don’t want a baby.
This is the rhythm to follow when you want a baby to come.
This is the way to make your bed,
especially when you are expected to lie in it.

And if I don’t want to lie in it?

Then you haven’t been listening.
We all have to lie in it.

~ first appeared on Poetry Dispatch

MONA LISA IMAGINES

artist: leonardo da vinci - mona leo juxtaposer: david r. tribble (?)

MONA LISA IMAGINES

by Karla Huston     

           

The virgins on the rocks were never

unhappy, yet you painted them twice. 

At least the twelve apostles could

gnaw meat off bones while they lingered

or leaned into a bit of gossip

or fingered silver coins.  Today

you want my hands folded just this way. 

Chiaroscuro, you call it,

a new way of seeing, but oh,

I am tired, wait like an unanswered

prayer or an angel condemned

to kneel forever, while you study

the slant of light and adjust shadows

with a thumb.  Today it’s your hair

that has me worried, flying out from

your head, your beard a silver nest

for insects and stray bits of food. 

And Leonardo, you have such nasty

habits: belching after every meal,

farting when you bend for a rag,

or scratching your balls and peeing

from the balcony into the lilies

below.  Now you could use a bath

and those nails clipped, but once

you might have been handsome. 

Maybe then you’d have painted me

younger, crowned with roses, my fingers

full of gold rings.  Why not ask me

about the scar on my arm or my crooked

little finger?  Will anyone remember

the smoky haze around my face,

the subtle shift of light and dark,

see how much it hurt to smile? 

~ first published in  Kalliope 

AT TABLE

photo: sharon auberle

 AT TABLE

by Michael Koehler

Chew on the gristle of these words.

Do they fill that hollow craving

that yawns just below the heart?

I sit at the table of my life,

plates loaded with all I desire,

heavy wine glistening in the flagrant candlelight.

My ghostly guests raise a toast to me, their host.

Old Loneliness stares into his cups,

mutters what could be a curse.

The Little Boy who was rewarded with snacks

eats all the greens on his plate out of fear.

Sadness picks at her food, goes hard on the Cabernet.

The Junkie has abandoned the table altogether

and sits now in the light of the refrigerator.

With one expansive gesture I ingest them all.

If there are skeletons in any of the closets of my heart

they are the bones of ancestors picked clean long ago.

~ first published in Fox Cry Review