Bobbi Sinha-Morey - The Doll House / Tuesday's Child

The Doll House

Living inside a doll house
the voice of its tiny heart
sends forth it secrets in
the layers of my mind,
its hidden life pulsating
without any movement,
echoing through every
room, tears trembling
in my eyes and the dusk
melting outside. Alone
making leeks in the kitchen,
my tongue is mute having
swallowed dust in the
asphyxiated air. Nothing
grows where I live, only
the bones of a child left
by the dead lilies near
my front door. At night
there are gaps in the
windows where lamps
never shine. By the light
of the daystar the nub
of a finger nudges me
awake, and the same
cerulean eyes peer in
like before.





Tuesday's Child

It's been a year since this
Tuesday she died under
the red autumn moon on
the edge of a viral fever.
The peridot ring she gave
me I let go of under the
moving lips of the river,
hoping to forget, but every
night I see her face above
my bed, and pages of her
diary left on my pillow after
I've slept. She watches me,
but not at daylight. One day
I let go of the house and
stayed away. When I saw
it again it had been unpainted
for years and, when I looked
closely, I saw her tear down
my favorite arras from the
wall to drape over a chair.







Bobbi Sinha-Morey is a poet living in the peaceful city of Brookings, Oregon. Her poetry can be seen in places such as Midnight Lane Boutique, Orbis, The Path, Bellowing Ark, and Pirene's Fountain, among others. Bobbi's books of poetry are available at Amazon.com and www.writewordsinc.com, and her website is located at http://bobbisinhamorey.wordpress.com. She loves cooking, knitting, aerobics, and reading. Bobbi's favorite author is Jodi Picoult.

Ray Samuc - The Lesson

We often skipped breakfast,

believed that days couldn't last,

we knew that statues would topple one day,

and crumble,

with enough dust to fill the air 

and filter out the sunlight.

Beneath the idle frames on the abandoned park 

we lay outstretched on split concrete,

watched clouds race across an open sky,

wild shadows on the static field

danced until the early evening; 

they taught us everything we knew.

Ray Samuc is an administrator and philosophy graduate from the North West of England. He has poems published in Mused, Blue Lake Review and other fine places.

M.J. Iuppa - Fog

The clock chimes three in the morning; streetlights, lining the cobbled street, glow incandescent yellow. In fog, this autumn feels more like a painting than a season. Something caught in an everlasting hour between stumble and stairway. I think I hear footsteps; yet, I know I’m alone. When I stop and look into the printmaker’s window, I see my eyes in the clock’s face staring back at me. I could be anywhere else, but I am stuck here.

*

I think it’s getting cold. My breath becomes two clouds disappearing on glass, but it doesn’t startle me. One hand on the storefront’s brick ledge gives me balance. I search his display for  the vanity table with its thin vials of perfume and an iridescent abalone shell that holds a loose string of pearls.  Everything is as I left it. There’s a thick drip waiting to fall from the espresso machine.  He still hasn’t washed the two demitasse cups left in the sink. What is he waiting for? These incidentals, ignored in daylight, leave a dark mess.

*

Qu’est-ce que?   My mind seesaws: What to do, do I do what I want to do? Are we two gray mice who have fallen into the bucket of cream?  Am I the one who drowned, or the one who paddled hard all night, churning cream until there was a pat of butter to rest upon?  A woman must learn to save herself, he said, turning his back to me. 

*

C’est Musée de L’Ordinaire.  How does one stand out as evidence among ruin?  He said he wanted to love me for a long time.  He knelt before me, pressing his rough face against my thin chest. His tears soaked my cotton dress. When he lifted his head to look up at me, the gold cross hanging around my neck grazed his lips. He smiled slightly, knowing he had me under his spell. He told me he was going to keep me for eternity.

*

I wish I could yawn.  If you’re looking for me, I‘m here, pressed under glass.

M.J. Iuppa lives on Red Rooster Farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. Most recent poems, lyric essays and fictions have appeared in the following journals: Poppy Road Review, Black Poppy Review, Digging to the Roots, 2015 Calendar, Ealain, Poetry Pacific Review, Grey Sparrow Press: Snow Jewel Anthology, 100 Word Story, Avocet, Eunoia Review, Festival Writer, Silver Birch Press: Where I Live Anthology, Turtle Island Quarterly, Wild Quarterly, Boyne Berries Magazine (Ireland), The Lake, (U.K.), Punchnel’s; forthcoming in Camroc Review, Tar River Poetry, Corvus Review, Clementine Poetry, Postcard Poetry & Prose, among others.  She is the Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College.  You can follow her musings on art, writing and sustainability on mjiuppa.blogspot.

Allison Grayhurst - All the Light / August 2

All the Light 

All the light from the beginning

remains - even as long as time

and then, continuing on so that distraction

and fears blot out the exuberance, and sometimes

nullify with the dark chains that bind us to the funeral

ground, to the alcoholic’s breath and to the child,

too abused to even cry. That the sacred chalice

gets ripped like a paper cup means nothing, because

the light from the beginning remains with the intensity

it was born with, remains and cannot be removed.

And the light between us - sliced cruelly like a cow

into thin fragments for consumption, like that cow, still

has a soul, somewhere hovering in happy pastures, loving

all the while, like in the beginning, when it was born -

beautiful, knowing only its first intake of breath and

the sweet nectar of its mother’s protective warmth.

August 2 

In this place of light and brooding, I smelt the

grapefruit in the morning under the August sun.

You were born and I miss you. Over 13 years of loss.

The day you left at 4:30 in the morning,

I felt nothing in the taxi but the sheer slap of horror

that held me for seven months, degutting every reality

that balanced my blood. I remember your hand - 

feeling the thick knuckles, the same I felt 

when I held it when I was a child,

safe, because of you and the confidence of your grip. 

I remember holding that hand, cold, 

without flow or sensation, for the last time,

knowing it would be the last time,

knowing you would not be my father like that again,

but be a memory that would change as I changed -

taking a life, as it now has, of its own.

Allison Grayhurst is a member of the League of Canadian Poets. She has over 550 poems published in more than 275 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers in 1995. Since then she has published eleven other books of poetry and six collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press in December 2012. In 2014 her chapbook Surrogate Dharma was published by Kind of a Hurricane Press, Barometric Pressures Author Series in October 2014. More recently, she has a chapbook Currents pending publication this August with Pink.Girl.Ink. Press. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com

Joan McNerney - Lost Dream / Eleventh Hour

Lost Dream

I am driving up a hill
without name on an
unnumbered highway.

This road transforms into
a snake winding around
coiled on hair pin turns.

At bottom of the incline
lies a dark village strangely
hushed with secrets.

How black it is.  How difficult
to find that dream street
which I must discover.

Exactly what I will explore
is unsure.  Where I will find it
is unknown.  All is in question.

I continue to haunt gloomy
streets in this dream town
crossing dim intersections.

Everything has become a maze
where one line leads to another
dead ends become beginnings.

Deciding to abandon my search,
I return for my automobile…
nowhere to be found in shadows.

Finally I look up at the moon’s
yellow eye…my lips forming
prayers to a disinterested god.




Eleventh Hour

Wrapped in darkness we can
no longer deceive ourselves. 
Our smiling masks float away.
We snake here, there
from one side to another.  
How many times do we rip off 
blankets only to claw more on?

Listening to zzzzzz of traffic,
mumble of freight trains, fog horns.
Listening to wheezing,
feeling muscles throb.
How can we find comfort?

Say same word over and over
again again falling falling to sleep.
I will stop measuring what was lost.
I will become brave.

Let slumber come covering me.
Let my mouth droop, fingers tingle.
Wishing something cool…soft…sweet.
Now I will curl like a fetus
gathering into myself
hoping to awake new born.

Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Camel Saloon, Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Missing of the Birds, and included in Bright Hills Press, Kind of A Hurricane Press and Poppy Road Review anthologies. She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net, Poet and Geek recognized her work as their best poem of 2013.  Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses.

Donal Mahoney - Miss Tiffany's New Neighbor

You don't know me but
maybe we should meet.
I'm your neighbor now,
just moved in
down the street.

Yesterday I waved twice
but I guess you didn't notice.
I wouldn't hurt a soul,  
but if I get upset, 
ah, then, who knows?

The problem is, 
my girlfriend Clare
married my best friend.
I've dated other girls  
since then but now

they're seeing other men.
I'm not certain what to do
but otherwise I'm fine. 
(You're really very pretty.)
And as I said before

you don't know me but
maybe we should meet.
I'm your neighbor now,
just moved in
down the street.

Yesterday I waved twice
but I guess you didn't notice.
I wouldn't hurt a soul,  
but if I get upset, 
ah, then, who knows?

Donal Mahoney lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He writes poetry and fiction. Some of his earliest work can be found at http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com

Chaplet #2 - Opus by Martin Willitts Jr.

OPUS

Martin Willitts Jr

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Table of Contents:

Opus   1

Opus   7

Opus   9

Opus   13

Opus   19

Opus   21

Opus   23

Opus   25

Opus   27

Opus   28

Note: Opus is a classical music term in which the music is thematically connected, but can be played in order, out of order, some of the pieces, or all of the pieces.

  

Photograph by: Martin Willitts Jr.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Opus 1

In blur-blast-haze of high humidity-heat

are sizzling insect noises,

active in scorch-purge.

The insects' happiness is everyone’s misery —

the heat is searing, visible like blue flame,

angry scar-sunburned.

Dark unknown paths eat scraps of sunlight —

waiting to die, bidding their time to claim light.

In this startling new, worrisome weather

there is little relief.

Rain shrivels before it arrives —

it is all flash and no substance.

 

How many of us are prepared for what happens next? 

Opus 7

An unhurried stream over a small rush of rocks,

smoothes the stones into eggs.

Listen to trees bud and rasp

in red, torrid breath.

Beware of the inherent danger of hidden things. 

Opus 9

Rains scour the plains,

rubs them down

until the bone of earth is exposed.

Lightning splits into flame,

brush becomes inflammatory words,

incendiary devices.

Birds collapse out of storms,

clasping their wings.

What is going on with this wildness?

Rowers bring their canoes of darkness to shores,

step onto the surface tension of loss,

nod to each other, let us, too, ignite.

Unspeakable actions call for concentrated silence;

blatant disregard is as common

as snapped green branches.

Opus 13

In the green half-shadows

among thick clumps of hawthorn leaves

there is a vapor of people.

I know, soon, I will join them.

I will leave through air

into another place.

When light is pulled away,

promises our ancestors made

will surely have forgotten.

Opus 19

It gets dark early, swallowing the final call of sundown.

When travelers discover they are nowhere,

it is too late. The dark devours them too.

I found their trace, a postcard declaring,

wish you were here.

When I read that, I started packing.

   

That crazy vanishing road

comes to remind us how truly lost we are.

We always neglect what matters the most.

Opus 21

Blackened corpses of stars are going nova.

All day, it has been crackling with heat insects.

I say, it is God’s voice telling us something important.

The heat grinds us for not listening.

We cannot seem to leave well enough alone.

Our futile attempts to improve or streamline life

only makes it worse.

Sheet music’s passages of wildness — briars

and milkweed sends music into trumpets of wind —

this melody heals stunted saplings, brings Light

to darkened air, finding cures for emptiness —

Light! — come fill us! Heal the forgotten!

Opus 23

All day, a continent of snow fell as apples

from the rim of the whitewash sky

until the ridgeline was erased.

Still, Nuthatches were shaking the wind

with their song.

The violence of snow cannot subdue them.

Opus 25

There is a precise sizzling

scattered in the lavender fields below

the cedar waxwings

suspended in air like butterfly kites.

It grinds like a person making a key.

It is locust in the heat-sweat afternoon.

It is heavy-duty sandpaper

rubbing against high-speed sandpaper.

It is voices shattering against the limits of love.

It is someone consumed with curses.

The heat has a musty smell,

worse than wet fur; like drowned fish

on the sandy edge of a retreating river.

This is when God opened a window in the sky

and the world was illuminated

with the same blue of thermal hot springs

and the odd golden shade of their earthen hole.

Opus 27

If God took a branding iron to the sky,

would you understand the message?

If a warning skimmed across paddling in a canoe,

would you look for exemptions in the margins?

If hurt was a white-crested wave,

what would stir it more, what would split open wounds?

Mistreated people will become Tongrass wildflowers,

their heads still bent to the ground from shame.

Where is the justice in that?

What is this in the unsettling blur descending?

Opus 28

In the thin membrane of a leaf

there is a vein

carrying breath

to the tip of a snag

hundreds of climbing feet above

like a forbidden fruit

on the edge of wind current

like the partial face of God

asking the reason for pollution

one wrong answer

could lead to a rock slide





Copyright 2015, Martin Willitts Jr.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

About the Author

Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian living in Syracuse, New York. He was nominated for 11 Pushcart and 11 Best of the Net awards. He provided his hands-on workshop “How to Make Origami Haiku Jumping Frogs” at the 2012 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Winner of the 2012 Big River Poetry Review’s William K. Hathaway Award ; co-winner of the 2013 Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest; winner of the 2013 “Trees” Poetry Contest; winner of the 2014 Broadsided award; winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest.

He has over 20 chapbooks including "Swimming in the Ladle of Stars" (Kattywompus Press,2014),“City Of Tents” (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2014), “The Way Things Used To Be” (Writing Knights Press, 2014), and “Late All Night Sessions with Charlie “the Bird” Parker and the Members of Birdland, in Take-Three” (A Kind Of a Hurricane Press, 2015). He has 8 full length poetry books including ), national ecological award winner for “Searching for What You Cannot See” (Hiraeth Press, 2013), “Before Anything, There Was Mystery” (Flutter Press, 2014), and “Irises, the Lightning Conductor For Van Gogh's Illness” (Aldrich Press, 2014).

His forthcoming books include “Martin Willitts Jr, Greatest Hits” (Kattywompus Press), “How to Be Silent” (FutureCycle Press), “God Is Not Amused With What You Are Doing In Her Name” (Aldrich Press).

These poems are from his collection of other numbered “Opus” poems which have appeared in the following magazines (some under different titles): Big River Poetry Review, Blue Heron Review, Kentucky Review, Literature Today, Love Notes (anthology), Moon Magazine, Page & Spine, Poppy Road Review, and Seven Circles Press.

Will Mayo - The Old 3 AM Rail

Once I took a stroll into a dying memory,

with two friends lying dead in the gutter

and with two pence in my one pocket.

All the barrios were shuttered.

No one would let me in.

And the lamplights were capped

with the cracked and fading glass of a broken bulb.

While windows of vandalized stores

were closed at half mast,

and people stared at a figure that set no cast,

I walked toward the grave of a bridge with no brine,

where I saw my shadow

lying on the railroad tracks,

waiting on the 3 AM train from East Central.

Within ten seconds of a narrow moon,

the locomotive came on by,

its coal burner set to fire on a broken stove,

and its wheels as high as the Mayor's house,

while steam pocked with specks of motes

poured from its chimney of cast iron.

And this old 3 AM rail trampled and cranked

over that dark shadow I'd once lost,

driving it into the ground,

down into the winter's layer of deep snow.

Then as the cars and cabs drove by and past,

over the hill and toward the valley of Monocacy,

I realized with my own regret and my own fear

that this train hadn't run in many a year.

And after minutes and seconds of waiting,

I reached down toward those crackling tracks,

and found my shadow,

somehow whole as if untouched,

but fragile like a friend.

I wrapped it about me like a warm coat,

as I left the grave of old 3 AM,

looking for a job and a companion,

while other mists and other shadows

rose from a bridge with no rail and no brine.