Summer 2017 Digest is Here

 

Night Garden Journal's Summer 2017 Issue featuring the fine poetry of: 

Jeff Bagato, Byron Beynon, Yuan Changming, Linda M. Crate, Ken Allan Dronsfield, David Gross, G. Louis Heath, Michael Keshigian, Eira Needham, Tamara L. Panici, Zvi A. Sesling, Ryan Stone, Marianne Szlyk, Ann Christine Tabaka, Dennis Villelmi,  Lynn White, Martin Willitts Jr., and Jim Zola.  Also included, a chaplet, Disappearing Darkness, by Martin Willitts Jr.

The digest will retail for only $4.25

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Tangled in Briars by David Gross

Rusty, shuffling locomotive winter.

Killing cold mousing through cracks.

Snow smudged gray by end of day,

night starless as mine shafts.

Powdery coal-dust blown beneath doors,

settling in attics, baby beds.

Stovepipe blushing red before sleep.

Dreamt all winter of blackberries,

shivering windows icing overnight.

That spring my sister died.

Never went berry-picking again.

David Gross lives in the 'greater Appalachian' hills of southern Illinois. His most recent chapbook is Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017). He has recent work in, Algebra of Owls (U.K.), Lilliput Review, tiny words, and Wild Plum.

Beware by Zvi A. Sesling

The house on Highland 
is dark tonight 
no lights 
the clapboard siding is black 
no sounds 
leaves on the oak tree droop 
overgrown bushes hide the door 
grass has turned brown 
squirrels avoid the grounds 
birds fly around it 
people cross the street to get away 
there are stories about it 
there are rumors 
the air seems thicker there 
even police patrols do not stop 
there is no rising sun 
on this house







Zvi A. Sesling, Poet Laureate of Brookline, MA is a prize winning poet. He edits Muddy River Poetry Review.  Zvi is author of two books of poetry and two poetry chapbooks. His next book, The Lynching of Leo Frank, is due out in September.

Sonnet: I Did Not Want to Be the One to Say It’s Over by Martin Willitts Jr.

I paddled out on a lake of music.

The rain was speechless,

pretending to be mute, at loss

for words, momentarily, but really

it was mostly pinpricks of rain,

easily ignored. The rain was spread thin.

The rain took time pacing the shore

line in contemplation.

I had eased the canoe onto the creek bed.

I had returned empty-handed.

There was dampness in my bones.

I had no thought of the future,

what it might bring. I was waterlogged,

dripping music, an unhurried waltz.







Martin Willitts Jr won the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, November 2016, and a Central New York Individual Artist Award for "Poetry On The Bus". 

Avenues by Dennis Villelmi

Dangerous setting-
The avenues have departed.
Long since has it been when mother
Last closed her music box. 
In fact, I was but a boy of seven then;
Now, I'm a man haunted by a boy's half-dream:
The Minotaur among the honeysuckle,
Under a Minoan summer sun soon to be 
Honored with the blood of so many boys
Grown to soldiers.

For them, the avenues have departed;
There is no escape...
From Crete to Normandy and on to Basra-
The music box is only opened in a dead 
Boy's ears. 

    

* ("Avenues" first appeared on Dagda Publishing's poetry blog 
on May 1, 2013.) 





Dennis Villelmi is co-editor and interviewer for the dystopian webzine "The Bees Are Dead."  Aside from editing the poems of other writers, Mr. Villelmi has had much of his own work published on various online sites.  He resides in Virginia. 

White Horizon by Yuan Changming

At the same height of 

            Every rocky mountain

            Above all seasonal change

The snowline is wildly drawn

As if cut open to bite a whole patch 

Of sky from heaven

With rows of rows of 

Whale-like teeth

Yuan Changming, nine-time Pushcart nominee, published monographs on translation before moving out of China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include Best of Best Canadian Poetry (10th anniv. ed.), BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1319 across 40 countries.   

To A Crow by Michael Keshigian

Your perch upon

the high white pines

dizzies rooftops

which stare at your nest,

nestled on a branch, 

camouflaged by fir,

green curtains closed about you

and blue sky behind 

completes your décor.

The sun illuminates

your airy boudoir,

the gusty wind

delights lofty humidity,

as you sit alone in luxury

and the rare lightness

of a fluttering disposition.

Prince of altitude,

heaven and whispering clouds

become your attire,

and when you visit,

red roses, white birch,

and colorful phlox 

bloom in your park.

You are night,

passing through day,

the avian ambassador

to the wingless,

ruling the ancient court

beyond living

hidden above our heads,

we whisper in response

to your flagrant call.

Michael Keshigian had his twelfth poetry collection, Into The Light, released in April, 2017 by Flutter Press  (https://www.createspace.com/7037872). He has been published in numerous national and international journals including Oyez Review, Red River Review, Sierra Nevada College Review, Oklahoma Review, Chiron Review and has appeared as feature writer in over a twenty publications with 6 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

Sculler Under the Bridge of Sighs by Ken Allan Dronsfield

Cursed cup of rotten eggs and lime

concoction of evil steeping in dreams

listen for the whispers of the sinister

whilst feeding on the souls of children.

Bodies adrift under the bridge of sighs

the servient Sculler guides them home

his oars of wood carved from the cross

inglorious thoughts of a heaven or hell.

The sculler plies under the great bridge

waiting patiently for a new fare to arrive. 

Ken Allan Dronsfield is a published poet who was nominated for The Best of the Net and 2 Pushcart Awards for Poetry in 2016.  He loves thunderstorms, walking in the woods at night, and spending time with his cats Willa, Hemi and Turbo. Ken's new book, "The Cellaring", a collection of haunting, paranormal, weird and wonderful poems, has been released and is available through Amazon.com. 

This World is Ash by Jeff Bagato

What rock wouldn’t scream
when it learns, upon awakening, 
how it used to be human, 
and all that’s left of a soft body
is displaced ash
and the hollow mold of volcanic ire

A banker who died
not clutching coins
but dust and the last breath
of cool fresh air

A gladiator who dropped
his sword and ran for open space
as the armory collapsed,
his lungs burned from the inside
out at a single breath

mothers and children who snatched 
at visions of ropes thrown 
down by unknown hands
to pull them from the scorching blast
and the layers of powder
pressing them down to humble 
address, out of reach
of each other’s comforting arms

a mountain of fire
can kill a city
when it roars,
and all that remains
becomes a landscape
of shattered dreams







A multi-media artist living near Washington, DC, Jeff Bagato produces poetry and prose as well as electronic music, glitch video, sticker art, and pop surrealism paintings. Some of his poetry has appeared in Empty Mirror, Futures Trading, In Between Hangovers, Otoliths, Your One Phone Call, and Zoomoozophone Review. His published books include Savage Magic (poetry), Cthulhu Limericks (poetry), The Toothpick Fairy (fiction), and Dishwasher on Mars (fiction). A blog about his writing and publishing efforts can be found at http://jeffbagato.wordpress.com . 

At the End of the Long Summer by Marianne Szlyk

Callie, like a ghost,

walks on my chest in the dark.

In the light, she is

a husk curled up on

my lap, as small as a bug,

a dried poppy

that could shatter

at any moment.

Marianne Szlyk is the editor of The Song Is... Her second chapbook, I Dream of Empathy, was published by Flutter Press.  Recently her poem was selected by Red Bird Chapbooks for its Weekly Read.  She encourages you to send work to her magazine. For more information about it, see this link: http://thesongis.blogspot.com/ 

Mystery at Baddesley Clinton by Eira Needham

Nicholas returns early, gasps; 

the priest is stroking 

his wife’s chin - or perhaps 

he is about to choke her. 

Horror fuels rage, sword 

flashes in candle light.

Step over him now, buried in upright 

stance beneath St. Michael’s entrance.

As penance, he built the church steeple.

The library floor remains ensanguine

by the stone arched fireside, but

whose blood was daubed on the boards? 

Now, footsteps echo along 

panelled corridors that lead 

to the reading room.

Voices argue, startle; a priest 

takes mass in the shadows.

A woman in black drifts 

through walls. Ornaments change

places, door knobs turn  

- hands unseen.

Eira Needham is a retired teacher, living in Birmingham UK. Her poetry is eclectic and has been published in print and online. Some of her publications are in The Linnet’s Wings, Voices from the Web 2016 and Poetry Pacific. She has also been Featured Writer in WestWard Quarterly.

Beneath a Reaping Moon by Ryan Stone

Halfway up the Hangman’s Hill
or maybe halfway down,
a broken house with empty eyes
stares blankly over town.

Dark deeds of old have taken toll
and none dare visit now
‘cept she and I, beneath a sky
solemn as her vow.

Larunda’s daughter, flaxen haired,
and Mercury’s wild boy
lie close as roman candles dip
and shadows writhe with joy.

Intertwined in sweet repose,
two hearts beat a single drum.
In darkened room, by reaping moon
a spark flicks its frenzied tongue.

Halfway down the Hangman’s Hill
lie broken, charred remains
of devotion, rare, a love laid bare
cleansed in crimson flames.






Ryan Stone is a freelance writer from Melbourne, Australia.  He shares his home in the Dandenong Ranges with his wife, two young sons and a German Shepherd.  A selection of Ryan's poetry, prose, haiku, and flash fiction can be found on his blog - www.daysofstone.wordpress.com

The Lighthouse by Lynn White

I was a little crazy

to buy the old lighthouse.

I knew it at the time.

But I wanted to be somewhere, 

somewhere where I could shine,

shine it’s lamps out into the vastness,

shine like a beaming beacon.

And it was so high.

It matched my mood and then some.

Higher than high.

Higher than high.

There was no housewarming.

No one came.

There was no one to come.

So, only I could relish the exposure.

Only I could walk round the top 

of the tower and look over the edge

into the dark deep depths.

Only I could see the swimmer,

a mermaid, surely? waving.

Or was she beckoning 

as she approached the mooring.

Only I could come spiraling down.

Come down from the heights 

to open the door,

to run down the steps

to the mooring.

And then the lamps went out.

*First published in With Painted Words October, 2015

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality.

We'll Marry Our Fortunes Together by Jim Zola

It starts with a darkness

you mistake for light.

You search each room

expecting to find more.

Empty glasses, dirty socks,

dog-eared books with broken spines.

I follow you, little shadow,

wanting to kiss

the soles of your feet. 

Tomorrow we will remember

our names. My Abelard

pressed against your Heloise.

Yesterday you traced the river

with a finger, sent it to me.

What am I to do with so much

water. I drink seven cups a day

and search for a bridge

to take you under.

You say wine. I drink

and shout out the window –

come home sweet nothing. 

You search and in each room

find my wife. She smiles

barefoot, marks her spot

in the book. The story of us.

The room fills with water. 

Drink. Open the window.

I swim to you.

Jim Zola has worked in a warehouse, as a security guard, in a bookstore, as a teacher for Deaf children, as a toy designer for Fisher Price, and currently as a children's librarian. Published in many journals through the years, his publications include a chapbook -- The One Hundred Bones of Weather (Blue Pitcher Press) -- and a full length poetry collection -- What Glorious Possibilities (Aldrich Press). He currently lives in Greensboro, NC.

Forced to Remember by Linda M. Crate

your eyes are the blue
of forget-me-nots,
and those petals echo
themselves
arching their backs catlike into
the sky of azure;
i know you've long since forgotten me,
but there's some ghost of you
refusing to release me—
i want more than anything to bury 
the past,
but you refuse to let me;
always creeping up pouring memories on me
like hot tea thrown upon my lap when i least expect it
causing me to burn in anguish—
it's always the ones that hurt that forget,
and those wounded that are forced to remember.








Linda M. Crate's works have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies both online and in print. She is the author of the Magic Series and three published chapbooks. She is a Pennsylvanian native who loves nature, art, literature, anime, and spending time with loved ones.

Last Days by Ann Christine Tabaka

An ironing board set up in a bedroom

with old slacks draped across it,

a sliding glass door to nowhere,

this is what life has come to

inside the sheltered rooms of a refuge, 

more like a shrinking womb.

 

Lost memories piled high in a basket

like last week’s laundry,

while confusion roams the lonely hallways

of blinking fluorescent lights,

being afraid of what is ahead.

These are the rewards for old age.

 

Time spent inside one’s own mind,

living out past adventures,

while rocking away in a rickety chair,

on the front porch of your last days.

Ann Christine Tabaka was born and lives in Delaware.  She is a published poet, an artist, a chemist, and a personal trainer.  She loves gardening, cooking, and the ocean.  Chris lives with her husband and two cats.  Her poems have been published in numerous national and international poetry journals, reviews, and anthologies. Chris has been selected as the resident Haiku poet for Stanzaic Stylings.

Chaplet #7 - Disappearing Darkness by Martin Willitts Jr.

Disappearing Darkness

by Martin Willitts Jr.

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Table of Contents: 


1. In Winter
2. Hands Stirring
3. Path in the Woods
4. Sudden Rain
5. Lesson
6. Before You Go
7. October
8. Geese
9. September
10. Maples

Cover photo: ABSFreepic.com
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In Winter 

I had to see what made a noise, ping-crunch. 

It was icicles breaking free
from spruce needles
shattering on blackened
limestone
where the back roads ended abruptly.




Hands Stirring 

When my hands are never sure what to do,
they circle.

There is a wind trying to learn
all there is in the world.

My hands stir words of seasons, endlessly.
There is stillness that never happens.

If I turn up the volume of silence,
what will you hear?




Path in the Woods 

Close up, this path seems to go nowhere
but I followed it to its illogical conclusion.
I wanted to know if it went anywhere
and when it didn’t I was not surprised.
But wherever I went, it took me there.




Sudden Rain 

                          rain
  wavering on the windshield


                         heavy pellets
of crystals
                         careening off the car hood

             portions
                                      clanging
                                      into disappearing darkness

light
silhouetting                   on wet black road surfaces




Lesson 

when a flower is dying
it drops petals
loss and regret
one petal then
another 

each time
the flower leaves
revealing the truth of life and death 

we all die
we are all forgotten




Before You Go 

Notice this light
filling in the empty spaces.

Notice the tracks in fresh snow.
They are not human, but
they are heading towards home.

Notice, the quiet has stopped here,
facing the cloudless sky,
simple as a room without furniture.

Notice: no one answers when called.

Experiences like this happen
without even trying, and then,
night wakes up, opens a door,
trying to catch up with those tracks
before they disappear into new snow,
before the woods enter into us.




October 

in ancient October light
far into the fields
turning rustic-red
our path is worn thin




Geese 

Somewhere, geese are plunging into faraway lakes,
skidding over water, hiding in brush, waiting
for that deep, connective-calling to begin —
when memory is glowing white and hard, fierce,
straining at their wings.




September 

Over earth’s shoulder,
the sun had not come
like a promise
of extending a helping hand.

September slows everywhere down to a grind.




Maples 

In autumn fields,
there is a graveyard of maples.

Not even dark places are safe.


copyright 2017, Martin Willitts Jr.
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About the Author

Martin Willitts Jr won the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2015, Editor’s Choice; Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge, Artist’s Choice, November 2016, and a Central New York Individual Artist Award for "Poetry On The Bus". 

Cefn Golau by Byron Beynon

Here the winter wind acts like a needle

against the wide skin of heathland,
a severe association with Welsh and English epitaphs

engraved during a malignant year;
networks of abandoned human bone and nerve
hidden within a shrouded moor,

shadows which turned away
from a marked silence
chilled as the cold air

surrounded the silhouettes of stone.
They remain forgotten,
in small, transient spaces,

a private darkness
indifferent to the terrain of constellations,
their untenable lives over, the quiet,

colourless dead, oblivious and equal,
while the livid sweep of snow continued falling,
echoing slowly their descent.

*Cefn Golau is Welsh for The Bright Ridge and is a disused cholera cemetery in South East Wales. The graves date from 1832 to 1855

Byron Beynon's work has appeared in several publications including Poppy Road Review, London Magazine, The Yellow Nib, Crannog, Plainsongs and The Muse (India). Also the human rights anthology In Protest (University of London and Keats House Poets).  He co-ordinated (on behalf of The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea) Wales's contribution to the anthology Fifty Strong (Heinemann). Collections include The Sundial (Flutter Press), Cuffs (Rack Press) and The Echoing Coastline (Agenda Editions).

Airport Terminal by G. Louis Heath

The flight board shuffles again before my

Dreary orbs, cancelling another dream for 

Launch out of this blizzard. Another trip

Gone awry, metaphor for life, one damn 

Thing after another. The terminal’s white

Noise fails to mask languages and dialects

From everywhere. They are anodyne to the

Dull throb of my long day, prelude to my 

Long night, laid out on a sarcophagus bench,

Draped in my Iowa winter coat. As night

Blackens the immense stretches of glass, I 

Feel I stand in the maw of a dying thing. I

Hope this will end soon, as this tide of 

Humanity ebbs out, this place then a desolate

Beachhead, sterile, no drift evidence of the

Vibrant, stressed humanity waylaid here by

Storm, a blink of the all-seeing eternal eye.

G. Louis Heath is Emeritus Professor, Ashford University. He enjoys reading his poems at open mics. He often hikes along the Mississippi River, stopping to work on a poem he pulls from his back pocket, weather permitting. Most recently published poem: “Baby Talk,” June 25, 2017, in IN BETWEEN HANGOVERS.

Black Lung by David Gross

Where I come from coal is king

or at least used to be. But since

they broke the union, sucking

ass is how men keep jobs.

Cheap bumperstickers holding

rusting pick-ups together

proclaiming Friends of Coal

that payroll staples to their

checks to justify a slow

suffocation for the old men in

front of the nursing home at the

edge of town, where a mine tipple

staggered thirty years ago.

Slumped in wheelchairs, gulping

breaths, nodding out in slowly

settling particles of night.

David Gross is the author of five chapbooks, Cup of Moon (Bull Thistle Press, 2000), What We Never Had (tel-let, 2004), Because It Is (tel-let 2005), Pilgrimage (Finishing Line Press, 2009), and Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017). His poems and essays have appeared in journals such as Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, Cape Rock, Common Ground Review, Hummingbird, Kentucky Review, Modern Haiku, Naugatuck River Review and Snowy Egret. He lives with his wife on a small farm in the hills of southern Illinois.