Three Poems by Martha Landman

Pardon the Setting Sun

 

I linger at the bridge; and I remember another time on this bridge,

I was the child painting the sky orange; but, here now,

my hair has bristled; — the sun fingers it, but

I sink deep below the shadow on the horizon.

 

O vineyard below the hills!  Carry not my dreams, my forgetfulness,

bless not my days as I pardon the setting sun.  I see no

message cradled in these clouds; I beg not.

 

O torrid truth!  Has my day mellowed like wine and cheese?

An equanimity of brambles and nettles, a final spark of sun

cluttering up every confined space, for a myriad of reasons.

 

O continents and new moons!  O confused collection

of constellations! When time has come to meet me

with a cold shoulder, I dare not order another whiskey,

nor hold my breath; I triple the colours on my palette: —

 

Snapshot

 

I yield every transgression to the cloud curtain behind which

the sun, now mellow, trails off in slow motion below the horizon

 

Almost unnoticed night slips in as the last daylight skirts towards

upside down orange on a peace-silver sky, glistening bright

 

All along the river-walk lawnmowers sing their final songs while

flocks of magpie geese nestle their young in lullaby-croaks

 

The mango trees, in a stir of night preparation, stretch out and

offer their branches to doves and cockatoos and honey-eaters

 

Down below along the riverbed, fishermen smiling, carry

buckets of daily catch, their rods in single file like holy men

 

And as the day quiets in pure thought, rests soft in sound,

I find deliverance and toddle off to kiss another earth.

 

Porcupine Gorge

 

Dry as dust the canyon lay like a lazy secret

in 44 degrees. Embalmed in its bosom it

held the truth of all the past and all the future

 

There, in an unexpected jubilation surrounded

by densely vegetated savannah plains and

peace-blue skies, birds reveal their mysteries

 

With water bottle and no hats we made the

descent like an easy chapter down the rocky

slopes, loitering from shade to shade around

 

the devil’s elbow, eager to be lured into the

murky pools below. The air held its breath

as we were challenged to stay ahead of the sun

 

marking its way to a cloudless noon.  Shortly

ahead was a lone traveller, as silly as us, unwilling

to forego this exhilarating experience. All around,

 

layered in basalt and coloured sandstone, the

cliffs stood erect, prominent, unperturbed and

silent with authority, a picture of appreciation, a

 

pyramid of respect. Through the soil and in the

air every moment breathed tradition, yearning

the honour of the Yirendali people, stone upon

 

stone. Together with needle-thin cows grazing

around the cliffs’ edges, our laughter concerted

in joyous chatter with the fathers of this land

 

Their presence nuzzled us back to the top where,

bathed in sweat, we sipped sacredness from the

gorge – a beaker of greatness, eternally bewitched.

 

 

 

Martha Landman writes in North Queensland, Australia, where nature's beauty is the muse. Her work has appeared in Every Day Poets, The Camel Saloon, The Blue Hour and other online journals and anthologies.

A Poem by ayaz daryl nielsen

endless heat in southern winds                                                     

withered, grey forest leaves 

underbrush and grass crumble 

with the slightest movement                                                 

keen, rugged boars scour

brush and dry creek beds 

loose, clever magpies render                                                      

black-and-white guidance 

the rain still doesn’t fall

 

ayaz daryl nielsen, husband, father, veteran, x-roughneck (as on oil rigs), hospice nurse, editor of bear creek haiku (24+ years/119+ issues), poetry’s homes include Lilliput Review, The Stray Branch, Eye On Life, High Coupe, Shamrock, SCIFAIKUEST, Shemom - ensembles include Concentric Penumbras of the Heart and Tumbleweeds Still Tumbling, released 2013’s anthology The Poets of Bear Creek - beloved wife/poet Judith Partin-Nielsen, worthy assistant Frosty, and! bearcreekhaiku.blogspot.com (translates as joie de vivre)

Three Poems by Heather M. Browne

Icicles

Icicles hanging from our eaves

Slowly catching winter’s tears in frozen fingers.

Hundreds of sorrows dripped

Now trapped in iced memory.

                                

We lick them to taste the sky and mourn the earth.

 

Breaking them off

Cracking their plight

Freeing them from their cascade of sorrow.

We hide them away from their memories.

To pull from freezer

On blazing summer days

When fire and burn is all we know.

To cool our tea

And remind us of pinecones and snow

And winter’s tears

Melting in summer sun.

 

 

 

My Mountain Hill

 

Sun came too quickly for my tired hill,

wanting longer to rest in blues and grays of stony night.

Waking achingly into softened salmon stretch

of morning light.  Gently rising,

maple oak to bask golden in new day dawn.

Looking upon my little hill, I see slumber

cuddling rock and crack in mossy blanket dawn.

 

My mountain yawns.



Butterfly

butterfly
moist

shivered
missing
womb's warm
embrace

too open
bendable
hiding behind
leaf & branch
drying

Sunlight
trickles through
cascading coral copper
saffron gold stained-glass
flutterings radiate
land a papered winded beat
upon his wings
softly stroking

breezes brushing
calming caress
mother's kiss
raising
to touch
her lips
full, open
ready to fly

Heather M. Browne is a faith-based psychotherapist and recently emerged poet, published in the Orange Room, Boston Literary Review, Page & Spine, Eunoia Review, Poetry Quarterly, The Poetry Bus, Red Fez, Deep Water Literary Journal, Electric Windmill, Maelstrom, mad swirl, and Dual Coast.  Her first chapbook, We Look for Magic and Feed the Hungry has just been published by MCI. She just won the Nantucket Poetry Competition and will be featured on their website. She has been married 20 years to her love, has 2 amazing teens, and can be found frolicking in the waves.  Follow her: www.thehealedheart.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Poems by April Salzano

Blow Job

It always catches me a bit off guard

when she does it, despite the time of the month,

our climate. I am waiting for something else,

expecting a better ending to my morning

when I walk from house to garage and get slapped

with a gust of Pennsylvania wind.

Georgia

Hers is a hot-whore sun that burns fast,
a high humidity that suffocates thoughts,
stifles breath, thickens blood. Slow flow
is a plodding draft horse trying to reach
trough gone dry. Heavy
head fails at floating, weighted
by pollen thick enough to see, a coating
of tennis-ball yellow veiling
surroundings, dense with drawl.

Running Dead

Dear people who live
in the house near my nest, today I am going
to commit squirrel suicide. Know that
it was nothing you did. Next chance
I have when the man is driving (because
the woman will risk her life not to hit me),
I am going to run headlong into your tire,
make it to the other side
of the car, run 5 feet while dead,
dive for a tree on pure instinct,
and collapse in a tail twitching tragedy.
There will be no other explanation
for what did not appear to be an accident.
It is simply too cold and I am too tired
of attempting to gather my nuts.



 

April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania where she lives with her husband and two sons.  Most recently, she was nominated for two Pushcart prizes and finished her first collection of poetry.  She is working on a memoir on raising a child with autism.  Her work has appeared in journals such as Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Camel Saloon, Centrifugal Eye, Deadsnakes, Visceral Uterus, Salome, Poetry Quarterly, Writing Tomorrow and Rattle.  The author also serves as co-editor at Kind of a Hurricane Press.

A Poem by William Davies, Jr.

Spring Cantata

The day begins
a fledgling symphony
then the score
is rearranged by wind,
a Treble Clef is flattened
by the slog of a turtle.
Peepers, in superfluous half-beats
usurped by hooves
that sink into
a baritone of mud
and a trilling
is the hook
as a requiem of clouds
portend the curtain.


William Davies, Jr. lives in a town surrounded by dairy farms.  He has been happily married for thirty-eight years.  His work has appeared in the Cortland Review, Bluepepper, The Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard, and many others.

The writer lives in a town surrounded by dairy farms. He has been happily

married for thirty-eight years. His work has apperared in the Cortland Review,

Bluepepper, The Wilderness House Review, Gloom Cupboard and many others.

A Poem by Ken L. Jones

Two Octaves Below the Stone Quarry

My garden has grown calluses as we sip the wine of serpents
Night glows green and then shatters into brittle chocolate splinters
While the dead leaves fill an empty bottle long thrown down
Autumn is a boxful of ornaments a soft jungle sliding
A glistening betrothal to a red gingham unknown fiddle
The color or rotten apples that forages on the strands of roads.

Ken L. Jones has written everything from Donald Duck comic books to dialogue for the Freddy Krueger movies for the past thirty plus years.  In the last three years he has gained great notice for his vast publication of horror poetry which has appeared in many anthology books, blogs, magazines and websites and especially in his first solo book of poetry Bad Harvest and Other Poems.  He is also publishing recently in the many fine anthology poetry books that Kind of a Hurricane Press is putting out.

A Poem by D.L. Tricarico

April Soul

for the first time
this season

the choir of birds
sing their pre-dawn

blues in the
bruise-colored sky

A Poem by Fain Rutherford

Winter Ops 

It’s so cold outside, flies

lie along the doorjamb

where a little heat leaks.

They’re lined up like fighter jets

de-icing on a vertical runway.

Stealth black fuselages conserve fuel,

vibrating just enough not to freeze.

Bug-eyed cockpit canopies defrost.

.When the door opens,

the squadron suddenly scrambles

into the studio’s steamy warmth,

flying missions against assigned targets-

coffee grounds, egg shells and toilet lids,

evading all countermeasures until,

one by one, acting on higher insect orders,

they crash into the window glass and die.

Over the years, Fain Rutherford has worked as a soldier, lawyer, university lecturer, rock-climbing guide, survival instructor and at-home-dad. He currently resides in Washington State.  His recent poems appear or are scheduled to appear in Subliminal Interiors, Right Hand Pointing, Poetry Quarterly, Front Porch Review, Eunoia Review, Connotation Press, and Apeiron Review.

  

Two Poems by Marianne Szlyk

Walking Past Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Winter

 

The last snow (for now) melts under soft gray skies.
Even now it clings, like cobwebs, to corners.

 

The holly hedge’s red berries and sharp leaves
hold the eye until the next snowfall.

 

Geese graze for grubs on the hillside.

The size of toy ponies, they do not fly.

 

Just like the waxy magnolia, the spiky cypress,
the leafless, last black locust,

 

they persist.
 

Somewhere in the city a woman on a patio
spoons sorbet.  The nearby quince blooms.

 

Somewhere else a bronze nude on a tabletop confronts
the indoor birds of paradise, the bittersweet.

 

They too persist.

 

 

 

Looking Out to Spectacle Island in April

 

The beach this time of year
is nothing but rocks.

She ignores the man
who is placing one
on top of the other,
trying to balance them.

She ignores his dog.

 

She is waiting for the summer
of bare-chested boys in shallow water,
baseball on the radio,
and the reggae ice cream truck
with its flavors
of soursop, mango, and rum raisin.

 

She is waiting.

 

 

 

Marianne Szlyk is an associate professor at Montgomery College, Rockville, and a member of the D.C. Poetry Project.  Her poems have appeared in Of Sun and Sand, [Insert Coin Here], What's Your Sign?, and Something's Brewing.  Other poems have appeared in Jellyfish Whispers, Aberration Labyrinth, Linden Avenue Poetry Review, Napalm and Novocain, and The Ishaan Literary Review.  This April she will be among the performers at DC's Performetry: Old Poems, New Poems, Your Poems.  Her poem, "All About Rosie," is among poet Mike Maggio's 30 Poems by 30 Poets: A National Poetry Month Celebration at http://mikemaggio.net/wordpress/?p=643

A Poem by Chad W. Lutz

 

Dusk

 

This moment,

Like a callous,

Rough and memorable,

Life penetrates,

But never painful,

Just uncomfortable,

Full amalgam:

Birch bark blowing in the breeze at dusk.

I sit listening,

Ears craning,

Mouth part agape,

The sunlight

does my listening for me.

My mouth stays open.

I wish the sky stay lit forever,

But then I would never see the night,

And the dark stretches just as far.

 

 

 

Chad W. Lutz was born in 1986 in Akron, Ohio, and raised in the neighboring suburb of Stow. His works have been featured in Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Dying Goose, Haunted Waters Press, and prominently on AltOhio.com, of which he serves managing editor. Chad currently works in North Canton writing web content for an online job resource website. An avid athlete, Chad runs competitively for a Northeast Ohio running club and swims in his spare time. He aspires to run the Olympic marathon at the 2016 games.

 

A Poem by M.J. Iuppa

Hereafter

 

In defiance of snow, she puts her shovel away in

the recesses of  her old barn, behind boxes of stuff

collected over years of wishful thinking, the odds

‘n ends of  invention  left with unread  instruction

manuals that would tell her how to use her time

wisely. She hides the shovel next to elaborate

cobwebs that appear gray and filmy, dripping

 like wisteria blossoms . . .

She looks all around and realizes that too many

 things have complicated her life. However, snow

will no longer be one of them.

 

 

 

M.J.Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. For the past ten years, she and her husband Peter Tonery have been committed to food sustainability. She has numerous publications (poetry, fiction, nonfiction and plays) in national and international journals as well as two full length poetry collections Night Traveler (Foothills, 2003) and Within Reach (Cherry Grove Collection, 2010) and five chapbooks; her latest prose chapbook Between Worlds (Foothills, 2013). She served as the poetry adviser (2007-2012) for the New York Foundation for the Arts, and since 1986, has worked as a teaching artist in the schools, K-12 for a variety of agencies (RCSD, BOCES 2, Young Audiences, Genesee Valley BOCES, Project U.N.I.Q.U.E. and V.I.T.A.L. Writers & Books, and others) Currently she is Writer-in-Residence and Director of Arts Minor Program at St. John Fisher College.

 

 

A Poem by Al Ortolani

Kansas as Wine Dark Sea

 

Sometimes on misty mornings—

I stand as Odysseus at the window,

floating on the roof of a barn.

The pitch is steep so I have to straddle

the peak, each leg planted

by a rubber-soled shoe. I hold

the weathervane, one of the few

originals roosters in the county, and

by leaning left or right, I pretend to sail

through waves of fog, lightning rods

trailing behind like untied

ropes from a mast. Pretty much

that’s where it ends—a few curtains

of disguise. Chickens rattle through

the open doors. A black snake

muscles below the hay bales.

Penelope teaches Honors English

to ninth graders in Overland Park.

Telemachus, a KU graduate,

has moved to an apartment

near a micro-brew in Waldo.

 

 

 

Al Ortolani is a high school English teacher. His poetry and reviews have appeared in journals such as Prairie Schooner, New Letters, Word Riot, and the New York Quarterly. He has four books of poetry, The Last Hippie of Camp 50 and Finding the Edge, published by Woodley Press at Washburn University, Wren's House, published by Coal City Press in Lawrence, Kansas, and Cooking Chili on the Day of the Dead from Aldrich Press in Torrance, California. He is on the Board of Directors of the Kansas City Writers Place and is an editor with The Little Balkans Review.