Monthly Archives: January 2012

Je veux to tell you something.
It aurait tolka take a malinkee tiempo.
Ils sont tolka words, words from a man.
Short but not sliskom sweet.
 
Los intes smile with downward bouches.
Vous savez un hombre selument quand il gavoreet from the cour
Listen not to that man who cannot stop talking
For he has nothing to habla.
There is an eternal language
One with no borders or restrictions.
And it is here I want to stay
and here
here in my own language.

© 2012 Marc Carver

Color coded complete with picture I.D.
We’ll teach you to be like us.
Give you a turtle neck or bow tie
You will be our kind of Mensch
Complete with certificate of authenticity
Credit rating and charge account,
Security, savings, and even disability.
We’ll teach you how to walk and talk
in circles as if you had some sense.
We will give you some brand named shoes
We’ll even call you Frank or Frankie
We gave you a brain doesn’t matter
Which for they all are just the same,
But why are you still reaching for
Flowers?

© 2012 Clinton Van Inman

Birdened

Walking my way to a graduation advising session

I think: Twenty-seven and still

living at home.

My ripped-seam backpack stuffed

with so much right-brain material. An awkward

struggle of weight

over my shoulder: my spine curls

and I wonder

if my scoliosis is caused by the lightness

in my left-brain.

I find a gray chick, neck twisted,

hunch-backed and chirping at me with one eye—

It doesn’t peck at bugs

but bites at its feet in the grass.

The mangled ball of feathers cupped in my palms

tests a jump and fly. But with one wing

shorter than the other, it flops right back

down, thrashing to press itself

on its feet.

I pick it up again,

Where is your mother? I say.

A sea of twittering in the foliage above me,

I wait—

but none descend to rescue

their crippled kin.

So I bend to remove my shoe,

plop down in the grass,

take off my sticky sock—

If education is what we think as flight

I may as well chew on my own feet.

© 2012 Tara Leigh DeAngelis

Salt Sick

I pull a silver fork through snarls

of bronze caked brittle hair.

The wash of sea is gray and sick

with briny bones of fish.

My skin breathes a pale glow

through a coat, salt-thick

and iodine-rich,

as a man stands tall

in a stiff black suit

surf unlacing around his feet.

He’s watching—

my body beached

on a high rock, sharp

beneath my scales.

I sink my heart into my spine,

wrap my fins around me tight.

I’m almost sure he sees me here

metallic in the dusk.

A swoop and cry from a gull above,

I look down to pearls

strung on seaweed overflow

my shiny shell of abalone.

Hands full of saline water

fail to fill my thirst.

My tail’s encrusted with salmon stench.

I am chewing sand—

for the man’s mind marvel:

The endless illusion

of sea touching sky,

the horizon’s gust of breath.

Oh, no, these shells

are not enough.

Abstract: “Salt Sick” is the product of an Ekphrastic study of John William Waterhouse’s 1901 painting, “A Mermaid”. The free verse  poem illustrates the feminine desire for life and the masculine longing for release.

© 2012 Tara Leigh DeAngelis

This mantis wasn’t praying.

At least the size of a ballpoint

pen, this mantis stood blank

against the concrete and turned

his head to look at me.

When our eyes met, I imagined

that we were both meditating

on this very moment,

considering each other

and the possible harm each

of us may cause. I was in a drive

thru and I wondered if he looked

at everyone this thoughtfully.

I kept the window up until

he turned his head back around

waiting on the next car to come.

I moved my car forward

and didn’t blame him for giving

up on his prayer.

© 2012 Heather Wyatt