empty gift
last class before Break
a girl took a scrap
of thick purple paper
trimmed it square,
folded it to a cube,
let fall a teardrop of glue,
snipped a strip of scarlet ribbon
and tied up the tiny box
with a frilly bow
Merry Christmas she said
near twenty-years
of its fading on my bookshelf,
I’ve admired the handiwork –
never tempted to open it
of course
because I watched it made
and know there’s nothing inside
shoelace
one end reaches too far from,
the other too near, the eye – a simple fix,
should be – but these shoes were my father’s
and I find he laced them with a trick
no doubt for better holding
– so I just make one loop too large
one too small
and rush out the door
slower is faster he’d say
trying to show what worked
what lasted
as I pulled away
till his care couldn’t
keep me close
and I became a loose end
out there dangling
tripping up the unwary
and trodden upon in turn
snowman
there he is again
in late moonlight
this early morning –
was he there all night?
when he first showed up
plump and smiling,
overturned basket
a troubadour’s hat,
stick arms raised,
coal eyes glowing –
I didn’t have the heart to tell him
wrong window,
the ice-princess has moved –
and next night there he was
I let the joke go months too far:
his youth spent,
he’s sunk in on himself,
a mere grey heap now,
head a twisted skull,
hat just hanging,
one eye drifted south,
face a fixed grimace,
mouth one long cry,
arms askew
as if he long forgot
what they were reaching for
– oh, to call back the cold season
that left him behind
hermit crab
star by star
the moon steps back
tugging away night’s blanket
wave by wave
he scuttles safe home
like a seabed bat
by sunrise
what does he do all day
hidden like an answer
in the coiled question
of his old snailshell –
sleep and dream? pray and plan?
tend his tender flesh?
while the sun’s giant feet
tromp the sand
and seagulls wheel and jeer
Category Archives: CHAOS
Poetry from Hongri Yuan, translated by Yuanbing Zhang
Four Poems Written by Chinese Poet Yuan Hongri Translated by Yuanbing Zhang The Sea of The Golden Palace Happiness is the memory of heaven And the soul is as sweet as the sun. On the canvas of the death you daub a smile from the gods. Oh, that is the light! The light of honey. If you can hear the heavenly hymns that is the sea from that golden palace lapping sapphire over eternal universe. 黄金的宫殿之海 快乐是天堂的记忆 而灵魂是甜美的太阳 在死亡的画布之上 你涂抹诸神的笑容 哦 那是光 光之蜜 如果你听见了天国的乐曲 那是黄金的宫殿之海 在蓝宝石的太空之上 2016.7.30 The Wine of The Soul I pick up a smiling flower from the future city To light up your black iron dreams The new book of the world delivers by the holy lightning The giant’s body rotates the transparent picture of the faraway stars-cape The light emanates from the gods Let you see yourself without any sorrow The body is high and translucent, each cells are as sweet as the wine of the souls. 灵魂之酒 我摘取一朵未来之城的笑容之花 照亮你的黑铁之梦 天国的闪电送来新的世界之书 巨人的体内旋转透明的星云之图 那来自诸神的光芒 让你看到那个不知忧愁的自己 身体巨大透明 每一颗细胞甜美如灵魂之酒 2015.3.16 The City of The Angel's Smile The white and silvery words of the moon kingdom shone in the dream last night The king of giants in the massive cities of ancient times presented me the gem book of the soul I will build a garden in the desert fill the jade vase with the holy spring Let the rivers and lakes shine a city of the angels' smile 天使的微笑之城 月亮之国的银白词语 在昨夜的梦境闪烁 那位巨人的王 在史前的巨城 赠我宝石的灵魂之书 我将在沙漠上建造花园 用一只玉瓶盛来天国之甘泉 让河流和湖泊映照 一座天使的微笑之城 2016.5.7 The Interstellar Kingdom Sometimes I see the sky smiling at me The limpidity spirit and flower clouds such as the old soul of mine watch my shadow on the earth The ground beneath my feet like a colossal ship toward the Interstellar Kingdom Those cities where giants dwell blossom on the dustless Milky Way.
Bio:Yuan Hongri (born 1962) is a renowned Chinese mystic, poet, and philosopher. His work has been published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, and Nigeria; his poems have appeared in Poet’s Espresso Review, Orbis, Tipton Poetry Journal, Harbinger Asylum, The Stray Branch, Pinyon Review, Taj Mahal Review, Madswirl, Shot Glass Journal, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Village, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. His best known works are Platinum City and Golden Giant. His works explore themes of prehistoric and future civilization.
Yuanbing Zhang (b. 1974), is Mr. Yuan Hongri’s assistant and translator. He himself is a Chinese poet and translator, and works in a Middle School, Yanzhou District, Jining City, Shandong Province China. He can be contacted through his email, 3112362909@qq.com.
Short story from Karen Boswell
A Moment of Ecstasy
I was seven when Dad died. I didn’t really know him well. He was in the Army and always away on some adventure or other. After a long tour in Afghanistan, he came home for good. I was a shy boy. Dad was built like a barn door. A fraught combination. Not long after coming home he took me to my first football match. The local derby at Anfield.
I remember standing on The Kop in-between his legs, hands like shovels holding my shoulders firmly as the raucous throng swayed and sung. It felt as if the humongous heaving body was going to swallow me. I looked up anxiously, tugging on the bottom of his jacket. He registered the fear in my eyes. I expected him to scoff at my cowardice.
Instead, he grinned. ‘C’mon lad, climb up here.’
He swung me up onto his wide shoulders. Cupping my hands under his chin, I could feel the scratchy stubble on his jaw, the beat of the pulse in his neck and the weight of those giant hands holding my skinny knees. Behind us, someone threw a plastic cup full of urine across the crowd. The golden liquid arced through the air, dispersing into a drizzle of dozens of drops that showered the unsuspecting audience below.
A chant from the crowd spontaneously rose, ‘You dirty bastards.’
Dad looked up at me. I could see droplets marking a trail down his temple. We both started to laugh. We laughed and laughed, tears mingling with the precipitation present.
The next morning Dad was found dead in the front seat of our Toyota Rav4. He had chosen to leave me by hooking up a hose to the exhaust. The doctor said it was Post Traumatic Stress. Mum said he was a selfish sod. I didn’t believe that because he had taped a note to the garage door.
DO NOT ENTER. CALL POLICE.
Now, when I think of him, I mostly just remember sitting on his mighty shoulders, both of us laughing hysterically, his life blood pulsing under my fingertips. It was a moment of ecstasy, and it tasted of piss.
Poetry from Abby Ripley
Ancestral Ideas Early in our lineage the handy man, Homo habilis, sees in his mind’s eye a useful connection between his hand and an egg-shaped basalt cobble milled by a river’s turbulent current long ago. He fits it to his hand and swiftly strikes another stone which produces a flake, a thin sharp-edged chopper or scraper easily seen as a tool to cut trees or meat, to scrape bark or the hide of an animal. Striding through tall grasses of the African savanna in the bright sunlight, Homo erectus, holds steady the image of his hunting fellows, taking a grazing zebra bachelor by surprise, by their combined effort like a pack of hyenas. They circle around under shady acacia trees, hearing casual snorts and the switching of tails; a lame one flees too late and is killed with clubs. A runner, having returned to camp, brings others with handaxes, cleavers, and growling stomachs. Tonight, around a cooking fire, they feast while two babies fuss suckling their mothers’ breasts. Not enough for them but more since siblings died. One mother clicks her tongue; the other, blows air on her infant’s face to bring on sleep. Pinkish streaks at the horizon announce dawn. Lanky men emit a sliding sound, eeeennaaaa. Sleepy youngsters stir in the dust while women search the ground for bones that their children can break for marrow when they feel hungry. Men slink down a slope to a muddy watering hole. Birds burst upwards in fright. In the night a pig has been killed while it drank. Would there be remains for scavenging? Only a muddle of animal tracks are found. The group will have to search elsewhere. Into the hot sunshine this sweating group of early humans find it pleasurable to lope over the wide savanna. To their minds no horizon is too far. They move toward the blue rise of mountains in the distance, hoping to find caves. Blue-colored horizons mean many days and nights spent looking for carcasses. Savanna grass gives way to scrub trees and succulents, the latter becoming a reliable water source. They meet other groups of roaming strangers. Babies who fussed under acacia trees are now men. Their deceased mothers left for predators or buried in shallow soil. They carry memories of white-haired Biftu who gave names to each in the small group to organize them and enable members to communicate. Succeeding this migrating group come others who slip through horizon after horizon, over endless surfaces, imagining what a difference a wooden shaft would make fitted to a long sharp blade of flint. Groups split apart, seeking alternative ways to live. Homo sapiens emerges as intuitive, if not conscious, aware of a companion’s motives and life’s potentials around them. They thrive on the northern edge of the African continent, adapting to variable environments, learning from their experiences and positing “what if.” By the seaside their outlook is flat and blue as sky. They walk through a vegetal corridor and find a land northward, not as luxuriant as the Ancestors had known. Caves become dwelling sites, but here they encounter new inhabitants who have moved from icy valleys in the north. Stockier, with a heavier brow, Homo neanderthalensis competes with the African immigrant for lynx and foxes, pestered by jackals and hyenas. This singing cave dweller of the Levant crafts small flint points with gripping fingers and his sharp-edged burin carves on delicate bone or antler. In open-air sites men design a core stone for specialty flakes. Fishes, hippos, small cats and bears along with wild cattle are butchered. Women look for bedding grasses, nuts and seeds. The two competing groups realize that combining their efforts to live make sense so they begin to cooperate and interbreed. When Elisav loses her daughter other women cry with her and fold the child’s knees into her chest. A niche in a rock formation is found in order that her closed eyes look toward the northwest. As an intentional act of affection a red deer jawbone is placed on the girl’s pelvis. That night mothers hold their children close. Later, offerings of fallow deer antlers and wild boar mandibles to the dead are incorporated into a simple ritual using words of a rudimentary language. Competition arises when a neighboring family shows deliberate intent to use the same burial ground. The original group, claiming ownership, drives them away with stones. With heads full of ideas and increasing physical skills, combined groups, not liking a crowded landscape, disperse east and west and proliferate along the way. Their progeny establish a variety of races and cultural traditions. At long last successful groups beget you and me and generations of space travelers seeking the moon. Thus, humans evolved using an ancient cognitive toolkit that went: I am preverbal. I am a figment embraced by imagination. I am the moment of eureka. I am the prize of consciousness. I AM AN IDEA.
Poetry from Vernon Frazer
Spelling a Caste
fecal matter
emulates the interior
graffiti: thoughtful legacy passions
the gravestone shake-up delicto
ballerinas terrycloth frame-ups
triplicate facts
irritate the implicit tenant
turrmeric snatchers gone dental
( )
one-liner survivors
their cathodes gatepost noon
to stingray mourners
castle poultry tremor
vertigo seminars deluxe
varied its lemon returns
plastered
before backdrop vernaculars
lotion diction
implanting a bellicose wok
an impetigo classic
( )
limbic nettlefest
stammering tremolo playpens
darkening theoreticians
stabs forward
art fully under
auctioneer pity
affects their style velocity
to indenture divorcees
( )
the opal toecap
exhales its duct tape feeders
nearby threadbare
valuable plagiarism (audio
too scantily sorceress phonic)
tributary betrothals
pressed handicrafts
repute strata borne (hypno
sonic)
poacher tremolos
in delicto passion
roughened noon’s horn to renewal
At the End of the End of Days
pyrrhic lumber left burning
sutures shifting for the lonely
casing new murder charged in stairwell
irritation brackets wilt insignia leaks
the roaring remedies measured pine
capsules for somatic coffee brackets
or for columnar socket blades
where reactor seekers last charged
disfigured tantra tracking in retreat
buried the remedies backward
as the corporeal circus games
dull massages filter grim retribution
basket threading reduced pleasure
to a fixable granite platelet flourish
no weather security packaging
socket banter breached arrears
extreme position dismembered
remnant amenity glimmer blades
tore through the loose coma pouch
luminous grades suspected traction
impaneled scrotal parlor forays
as privileged inflation disasters
fruition stalls reply nostalgia riffs
mount a laughable tenth catalogue
with harried impertinence rehearsed
a long and clever compendia rapture
Meating at the Market
produce caught placenta
near the deadening cadavers
readjustments
travesty a cereal pedant
bracketing rotisserie voyeurs
to potential
*
ratio jackdaw boogie bang
handrails starch appraisal
crossword rendered facet
a signage assault
emptied an emulsion clerk
scaling slow rancor
cliches fodder the medically impaled
*
peacock testimonies
quilted brimming
yelp and braids
applicable implosions
keening geothermal chants
on elite
finalists
weird attributes
momentary gloating
velcro to pleasured settlers
embodies rotisserie leg when heel
archly lathered
abundant garret valedictions
over
flipped steak
Glandular Potential
testicular headrests
wrench storekeeper cans
across liniment coves
a charlatan mélange
straining
renewal geeks
gladiatorial emulsifiers
abdominal bigamists
asset ogre credits looming at birthplaces
*
a thug tympani
appealed to retired diameters
no polysyllable due
its rambler hostel
for a marshmallow enema
the mad lender boldly detonates
the hospital
divorce usher used
a synthetic seeding
for tragic panorama
suburban primers
sneezing petrochemical thoroughfares
*
a shattering
polysyllable
opalescent
tragicomedies dazzle beyond downturn
flamingo documentaries
polymer reptile cans
used malingerers
backward idyll
transforming
transit risings
rumors instance
Payback in the Works
packaging as market bait
the gondola switched a rife glade’s
lively blades rowing them away
from a pomegranate vacuum
thrust among the blockage pills
left to filter the coma gray
as though roaming impertinence
didn’t wilt before lions tore
the colosseum to rapture
the heavenly void capsules
on sale forays ventured affable
in a laughable remix tantra
no fixable position left unturned
or tuned to low vibrato brackets
in the carry-on seizure pouch
aligned the deathly software
carpet no match for the reply
to optimal regeneration totem
requests for privileged infection
prior fillers mount to story board
the suspected plenary crawl
toward scrotal insignia pablum
breached where mounting flourish
stalls the backward crawlspace
remedies burning socket mantras
measured use of cynical bursts
jangling medicinal ganglia rifts
left charged for empty retribution
BIO: Vernon Frazer’s newest poetry collection is Gravity Darkening.
Poetry from Ian C. Smith
Daft Skint of wisdom I strained to capture, push-ups propelled my fitness regime. I worked my six-pack, women’s rapture, skint of wisdom. I strained to capture zest when I suffered a contracture earning male respect for self-esteem. Skint of wisdom I strained to capture, push-ups propelled my fitness regime.
Clouds Racing Overhead Through binoculars I spot a yacht, a man, his woman, hair streaming free. Horizon stretched, these yearning hours hot, through binoculars I spot a yacht, Mitty-like, spray on deck now my lot. Exploring leagues of fathomless sea through binoculars, I spot a yacht, a man, his woman, hair streaming free.
Bones Beneath Us Hoping lights like low-slung stars appear dappling the harbour, a warm hotel, late in, we faced massed waves, black walls sheer. Hoping lights like low-slung stars appear, we hold our course, shark jokes a veneer. Wreck charts curled, awash, we share this shell hoping lights like low-slung stars appear dappling the harbour, a warm hotel.
Biog: Ian C Smith’s work has been published in Antipodes, BBC Radio 4 Sounds,The Dalhousie Review, Griffith Review, San Pedro River Review , Southword, The Stony Thursday Book, & Two Thirds North. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.
Poetry from Michael Todd Steffen
How everything turns away… ~ W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts” to its small purpose, the plowman’s hands holding reins and plow, the shepherd’s gaze upward inventing stanzas for the month of June. The lowlands are pasture, the terraces arable. Stouter to the myth Breughel has seen the far-away world of fate close to his world. The local and contemporary eye has pictured that as this in terms of home. Green is the sea under a thawing sky as unlike Greece as Shakespeare’s Rome and Rome. A partridge clutches to a waking vine stock. Columns accent the city far below with its harbor awaiting the ship that may be expensive and delicate, gliding on a stiff breeze. Palirunus Marginatus Not everything red is a lobster. But the part of us fed to love pried from our armor and prominent claws is easily imagined all buttery succulence. Instead it refuges further beneath the surface in a different ocean without grammar, spiny and recessed. It has shed its defenses though remains distinctive with hair-tenuous antennae precisely watchful enough to sound us from its other side of the world. With Seaweed Dreams are dreams only—once woken from. Everything ran slower in that sluggish element where your hair floated freely with the seaweed and love became a salty buoyancy of smiles and stinging tears. I was subsumed with the acorn barnacles, sea vases and the translucent baskets of Venus’ flowers, learning my sessility under the hover of dead man’s fingers that clothed you, a spiny carpet of urchins at the bottom of my feet. There you were: Belief made you, in entries of the log books of sailors from flooded explorations, in your blended topos of history and myth, topmost human yet by our day’s thorough fathomings no more than tale and so there I dreamed, dimly yet surely aware of my natural shores, little by little insisting I must breathe as speech intoned beyond words to the single unbroken high C beyond me in the pressure of my hearing. Conch I kept turning away to become the staircase I climbed from the bottom up spiraled by the encompassing element, hoist up my mast for a Hindu ceremony’s music of the spheres, my door given way to this riddle of speaking mouthless from an exterior I unfolded at one with.
Michael Todd Steffen is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship. His poetry has appeared in journals including The Boston Globe, Everse Radio, The Lyric, The Dark Horse, Ibbetson Street, The Concord Saunterer, and Poem. His second book, On Earth As It Is, will be out in early 2022 from Cervena Barva Press.