XI

Hot Days
Lila Lavender


She walks to her faucet and lights a match.

A flame shoots out like a blowtorch.

That’s the way things have gone

since her son left town.

It’s one-hundred-and-eight degrees

in the wind.

Leaves don’t travel

through air anymore.

Instead they grip the ground

clinging concrete

crying for their mothers

to take them back home.



_______________________________________________



MALEVICH'S "WHITE ON WHITE"
BZ Niditch


Copious yet alone
round  granite
in execution
of the body printed
outside of time\
no sameness of trees
along the Arbat
shadows starlight
on a thousand ladders
of pink coated
frozen faces
left on Gogol's neck\
trembling on zero clouds
        dashing
between centuries
bridges, colours,ports of call
O,
        sea of bird voices
on distant isles
where orchestras
with cones of pines
echo distantly
on high bluffs
from halos of sunshine
on a child's
lungs and breath
visiting
    from englassed colonnades,
cities not yet
wept for
   in military brown
missing in action
from leathery hands
   of soup kitchens
   in flossed
strait-jackets
   from the sky snow



_______________________________________________



DOUBT DROPPINGS
Maggie Mae


I challenge Pinot Noir. Tonight is squeezing too tightly.
Doubt has been roaming the room.
The corners suck into themselves,
seeking solace,
I bag my eyeballs for comfort
but they want to follow it.

Doubt droppings map a path
to queen size beds
and rare sized men. I want to leave with them,
but I have a couch,
or its not mine but with my grip
it must have been!

I do not go,
or fantasize,
or follow. I sit,
without wishes or wonder.
I sit

while doubt creeps about
through carpet lint,
between my toes,
slithering up my skin,
it hovers.

The only thing I know to do
is take myself to talk to a mirror
and watch precious fabric fall from my body,
giving me something unguarded to
shampoo with.



_______________________________________________



11 p.m.
Anton Frost


i WANT to go home AND set
              my keyboard

to
ELEC. ORGAN

and BLOW the ROOF
              
                OFF my

MADNESS

ONCE and

for

ALL.

there WILL be BRANDY

            and SHALL there
be Xmas LIGHTS?

THERE shall

BECAUSE there is no
                WINE,

BECAUSE there are no

CANDLES

any-
more.



_______________________________________________



Sonnets for Belinda
Paul Hostovsky


When I overhear her in the caf, complaining

about homework (“And on top of everything,

Marcantonio wants us to write an effing

sonnet by Monday morning.”), I sit there sucking

my pen. Then I try an opening line: “I write a mean

sonnet,” I say, bellying up to her table like a man

bursting through the doors of a saloon or whorehouse

with an octave and a sestet in each holster. She shows

me her eye-teeth, looks me up and down like Mae West

asking if that’s a sonnet in my pocket or am I just

glad to see her. I’m always glad to see Belinda Moyer

whose body is a light-bulb and whose face is a pure

light. She bids me sit; wants to talk wampum.

“How much for a Petrarchan sonnet by Monday 8am?”



I don’t answer right away. So her question just echoes

in the silence, the way a good poem sometimes does.

“For you,” I tell her, my chin in my hand, pretending not

to look at her breasts—“I’ll do it for nothing. Nothing but

the pure pleasure of doing it,” I add, looking her right in

the eye. She shows me her bicuspids, picks up a napkin

and shreds it poignantly, then leans in close and whispers:

“Deal.” She gets an A, of course. But at semester’s

end, when I want to collect, and she wants me to collect, I can’t

get it up. I’m mortified. She’s mystified. But I want

her, I tell her, as she dresses quickly, something in her eyes

like pathos when she says, “The evidence says otherwise,”

then turns at the door penultimately, resting her cheek on it,

and adds, sort of sideways, “But you write a mean sonnet.”



_______________________________________________



DE KOONINGS'S "MARILYN M"
BZ Niditch


    POST WAR
POSTERS put out of season
of coolness, jazz headlights
turned up in blues
  on borrowed day beds
    as student princes charge
free
films at the Village
answered from oracles
on unslept day beds
of   liberated verse
   from alienated rec rooms
on  closeted scenes
   snuffed by library
shelves , easal pyramids
   deserted
time zones opened
to alleyway
notes fixed on sax
      playing up
in attics of hirsute
cutting edges
in tattoo  parlors 
and sound proof studios
  on shaman nights 
at the Cedar Bar
opened for the like-wise
and Marilyn,
spoken for in drag and drang
even by spies
of the cold war  
whispering your name
in code   
will be painted,imprinted
   patched up
  recalled and designed
in lenses
of abstract brushstrokes
       under popular waves
of optics and technicolor
dubbed in with high wired
patronage from the nouveau
psyche of the Beats
through the thrill
  of city oleograhs
  entering the timeless body
       x-rayed  tinted
and
  post mortem.




_______________________________________________



notions
Anton Frost


50+ herons
circle

having lost sight
of the water

confused by the mist

while a girl sits against
a white wall

either eating an apple
or resting her chin
in her palm

touching each
of her fingernails
to the tip of her tongue.

while the white vapors
roll in

everything seems
to show how

when your notions
become absolute

you become lost

& in spite of

the whole world
saying this same thing

i stop and lean forward
because nothing
lies beyond
knowing

if the girl is
eating an apple

or not.



_______________________________________________


Tonight, the radiators speak
Claudia Serea


Tonight, the radiators speak 
the birds’ language. They chirp and trill. The pipes clang. Steam hisses and raps in slang. The house crackles and spits fire from its armpits. 
The birds inside the pipes take flight in my sleep.

              This reminds me of a cold, cold, whitewashed room. So cold, I slept with gloves on. The ice on the window was thick, but I could still draw faces, a crooked garden, 

and a house with a roaring fire. I could hear the snow slapping the brick. From my bed, 
I could smell the outside cold. All night, my breath wove a sheet of thin ice on the wall, on which women and men dressed in furs skated until morning.



_______________________________________________



Spiritual Mom
Paul Hostovsky


Mom got spiritual in her late fifties.

And we really had no patience for all

the forgiveness. It was disconcerting

the way she’d kneel down on the floor

in the middle of the conversation and hug

the dog, and whisper affirmations into

its long ear, stroking and folding it

inside out like a pocket. When she emptied

her bank account and gave all the money to

whoever asked, wandering around downtown

and reaching into her purse to offer whatever

her fingers touched first, it was the last

straw. We did an intervention, as they call it

in the field of addiction. We sat her down

and confronted her on her spiritual habit.

The room grew quiet as Mom wept softly

and her eyes searched the floor for what

to say. We simply waited—even the dog

cocked its head in that doglike listening way

for some kind of affirmation that Mom had

heard us, and understood, and would cease 

her spiritual ways or at least be in the world

a little bit more, if not quite of it. “Praise

dog,” she said finally, breaking the terrible

silence. The dog barked and wagged its tail,

sniffing Mom’s crotch. We laughed nervously,

breathing a tentative sigh of relief, interpreting

her words to mean she was back on earth with

us and the dog, and no longer walking around like

she didn’t have a colon, with one foot in Heaven

and an ear to the hot little mouth of God.



_______________________________________________



A donkey, a camel, a mare: 
Claudia Serea


Grandma carries me everywhere in the house on her back. Giddy-up, Grandma! I sip milk through a curly straw made from her hair. In the dark, 
she carries me upstairs, my small hands clasped around her neck. I can’t see her face anymore, but I know I’ll never let go.



_______________________________________________



Boot Camp
Tony Burnett


The blast from the electric horn vibrates the air so violently that the molecules of the adjacent concrete are affected by the sound. The surface of the water in the rectangular pool boils as twenty- five pubescent seals burst onto the aggregate platform surrounding the artificial pond. I know there are twenty five seals. I count them every day. I feed them every day. Twice.

     The air is rancid with the scent of decaying marine life and petroleum refineries. Anita steps through the aluminum door. The hydraulic closing mechanism hisses. Anita is dressed in an athletically inspired two piece bathing suit that was originally black. It has faded to a dusty charcoal. She wears a black visor and dark wraparound sunglasses. You cannot see her eyes. Though she normally wears rubber soled sneakers, today she is wearing unusual footwear. The black leather boots have chunky three inch heels. The sleek leather tops are laced snugly to the knee with thin nylon cord. Near the top of the calf, protruding through a sterling silver disk, are long leather tassels with two turquoise beads braided into each one. Stepping into the sun, she glistens from the sunscreen, though the skin underneath is brown and taut with a visible lack of elasticity. She walks with a military posture toward the line of seals.

     The seals are young, probably half of their adult size. They range in color from a pale grey, through a brown tint to midnight black but are otherwise virtually identical. Each seal is posed identically with eyes staring at the sky directly above. Each seal holds an identical plastic flower in its mouth. The flowers are not the kind you would find in a craft store. They are giant cartoon flowers made from brightly colored polystyrene discs. A plastic shaft the diameter of a pencil serves as a stem.

     Beginning at one end of the line, Anita walks slowly, stopping in front of each seal and observing it for a moment. The seals remain motionless, except for one. About a third of the way down the line, one of the seals is distracted by the dancing braids on Anita's boots. It lowers its head, enchanted by the motion of the dangling beads. Anita stops and turns toward the seal. Before it can regain its focus and make eye contact, Anita's hand darts, snakelike, as she slaps the seal viciously, causing the flower to bounce off the back of the next seal and plunge into the pool, sinking toward the drain cover. The seal puts his head down between its flippers and closes its eyes. Anita continues her inspection.

     Anita turns when she reaches the end of the line. With the sun at her back, Anita removes her sunglasses and slips them on above her visor. The irises of her eyes are so dark that her pupils appear enlarged. She begins to walk back along the line of seals. When she reaches the seal with the missing flower, it is staring directly over head, posed to match the other seals, but flowerless. Anita stops in front of the flowerless seal and bends at the waist until she is almost touching noses with the seal. "Where is your fucking flower, you useless piece of shit?" she screams. The seal points his swelling nose toward the deep end of the pool. Before it can turn back to face Anita, she takes a step back in order to put more force into the kick. It is a classic punt. It catches the seal directly between the flippers causing the seal to fly backward in a somersault arc. When it hits the water it swims toward the deep end. A thread of red blood follows the animal toward the drain cover.

     Anita reaches the end of the line and turns back toward the seals, She studies them with her feet slightly apart and her hands on her hips. The boots make her almost Amazonian against the backdrop of small seals. The damaged seal crawls back out of the pool and takes its former position. The flower is in its mouth. It stares at the sky. Anita observes the seal as a small pool of blood forms from the drips falling out of the seal's mouth. Her hands fall from her hips. She sprints toward the seal. With her final step she leaps into the air and uses her height, weight and momentum to slam her right boot down on the plastic flower, driving the plastic "stem" down the seal's throat. The seal struggles to remain on the platform, its flippers flapping wildly, but Anita continues to force the seal from the platform with her foot. The seal slips into the water.

      Tomorrow morning, after I clock in, I will fill the two galvanized pails with dead mullet and cod fish. I will count twenty four seals. I know. I count them every day. I feed them every day. I am the one who scoops the bodies out.



_______________________________________________




Tony Burnett is a member of the Writer's League of Texas and an award winning songwriter. His short fiction and poetry have appeared in national literary journals including, most recently, Tidal Basin Review, Fringe, Fiction 365, Red Dirt Review, The Vein, Toucan Magazine and Connotation Press. He lives in the middle of Nowhere, TX. with his trophy wife where his hobbies include having philosophical conversations with melons, poking wasp nests with a short stick and wandering aimlessly about.

Anton Frost is a poet living in Grand Haven, Michigan.

Paul Hostovsky's latest book of poems is Hurt Into Beauty (2012, FutureCycle Press). To read more of his work, visit his website www.paulhostovsky.com

Lila Lavender has scraped together three quarters, five dimes, and a sticky nickel from her brother-in-law's bathroom floor. She'll have a coffee today with cream and one yellow packet of Splenda.

Maggie Mae has been a featured artist for SoJourners Indecisive and Art4TheHomeless. Other work can be found in Curio Poetry, TurtleWay Journal, Amulet, Conceit Magazine, Poetry Now, and many others. 

BZ Niditch aims for minimalism and euphony as an international surreralist published in the International Poetry Review, Prism International, Folio, Ygdrasil,Psychic Meatloaf,Scorpio Poet Zine, ZYX,ART-MAG, Seininweiden. 

Claudia Serea is a Romanian-born poet who immigrated to the U.S. in 1995. Her poems and translations have appeared in 5 a.m., Meridian, Harpur Palate, Word Riot, Blood Orange Review, Cutthroat, Green Mountains Review, and many others. She was nominated two times for the 2011 Pushcart Prize and for 2011 Best of the Net. She is the author of To Part Is to Die a Little (Červená Barva Press), Angels & Beasts (Phoenicia Publishing, Canada), and A Dirt Road Hangs from the Sky (8th House Publishing, Canada). She also published the chapbooks Eternity’s Orthography (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and With the Strike of a Match (White Knuckles Press, 2011). She co-edited and co-translated The Vanishing Point That Whistles, an Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry (Talisman Publishing, 2011).