Laurie Byro reviews Christopher Bernard’s poetry collection Chien Lunatique

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Check out these words that fall like subtle incantations..

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Christopher Bernard is the master of entry and departure, hello and goodbye. Lured, summoned as we are into this magnificent collection, we are unable to tiptoe into these poems. Black Fire is the entry poem and so begins the dance.

We are cautioned to meander, sly rhymes beg us to slow down, but we can’t resist jumping straight in. Check out these words that fall like subtle incantations: absurd/contempt/attempt and later love, dove (but ah its a verb). This attention to sound and wit makes us want to examine each line. Is this word a sea shell or a stone, a cape may diamond or a pearl? We are enchanted by the discovery of words and emotions that are familiar made fresh. We hold it to our ear.

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J.K. Durick reviews Dale Wiley’s novel The Intern

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The Intern: Chasing Murderers, Hookers, and Senators Across DC Wasn’t In The Job Description by Dale Wiley, published by Vesuvian Books, 2016.

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The Intern is an entertaining novel, a novel that employs all the elements and devices we associate with its genre, the conspiracy-thriller. Trent Norris, the first-person narrator, main character is, just as the title suggests, an intern, an intern at the NEA, the National Endowment for the Arts, which he irreverently describes as “the artsy, standard-bearer of the Apocalypse, the dirty-minded, potty-mouthed, slightly fruity one. A lightning rod to the closed-minded and a place for lovers of the perverse.” But, of course, as an intern he is a minor player in the apocalypse, a gofer who files paperwork, sits in on meetings, ghost writes reports, and answers phones. In fact, it’s while covering the phone for the secretary to the chief financial officer that he gets indirectly involved with a conspiracy that involves the guy whose phone he’s answering and a couple of other chief financial types at foundations. He picks up the phone, a private-line he was not supposed to answer, and is told about something that was going to occur that afternoon. Later he realizes that the mysterious thing being discussed was the killing of a senator. His involvement comes about through the message he left, as a conscientious intern would, about the call; at the time, he thought that the vague thing being discussed was connected to an arts program. After that, a long and involved series of events take place. Trent ends up being chased by the conspirators and the police, who think that he was the assassin. In a matter of a few hours he goes from lowly unpaid intern to public-enemy number one.

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Poetry from Mahbub

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A Shining Beauty On Her Face

 

Beauty was sparking on her face

It was shining in dark night

The moon light failed

It was she, my beloved, my heart

Though she hardly pay any heed to my words

But I fell in love

Could not think others without her

She was in my heart, in my mentality, in my thought

The cows, the sheep, the goats were grazing on the land

The sun was going to sink in the west

The glow of light reflected

On my eye

I saw, I observed nothing but my love, my darling

But how could I move

I kept myself always back

She looked but I could not approach

In this way the days passed

Time came to her, she got married

I had nothing to do but lament over

And sank into deep thought

Think whether I am alive or died

Became so nervous and passive mood

Acted on my body

Bent upon thought

That was only for my side

She never informed

From that I speak less

Though before it was aloud a lot.

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Poetry from Gale Acuff

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Future Perfect

I say my prayers every night, first
the Lord’s, which we say in Sunday School and
Miss Hooker leads it. I’m in love with her
and I’ll marry her one day even though
she’s 25 or so and I’m just 9
and that’s sixteen years’ difference if my
take-away is right, and even though she’ll
always have sixteen on me, I don’t care
because my love is strong and nobody
could love her better, I know, except
for God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost but
that’s not fair, I mean nobody human
so when I’m 16 I’ll ask her out on
a date. I’m sure she’ll still be single then
because I pray about her every night
after I say the Lord’s Prayer, which is
what Jesus said Himself and told the folks
to pray that way so how could they miss? and
then I pray for my parents and my pals
and even my enemies–I don’t have
any but one day I will so I should
be ready for them. Sometimes I can’t wait
for someone to hate me just to see how
loving them this way will make them lose, lose
in a way that won’t hurt them, I mean, they
can’t be all bad if at least they’re giving
me attention. And then my dog, that he
goes to dog-Heaven when he dies, a good
boy he is, too, and can sit and stay and
speak and shake hands, or is it paws, and chase
sticks and balls and rocks and fallen apples
and cats and squirrels and one time he treed
a ‘possum but ran off when the ‘possum
showed his teeth and I’m not ashamed for him,
I ran, too. And mice and rabbits and stray
dogs and cats and the substitute mailman
who smells funny, I guess. Then I come to
Miss Hooker, that she’ll be safe, and single

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Essay from Kahlil Crawford

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GREEN MOUNTAIN

I’ll never forget my first adult glimpse of Lake Champlain and New Hampshire’s White Mountains. The sight captivated me to the point of postponing my trip to Montreal, so as to explore the state of Vermont – a spacious museum of pristine nature and “New English” culture.

Being a Chicagoan curious about small-town America and personal (ethnic) identity, in Vermont I commenced what would become a living tour of far-North American history.

I visited people, places, and circumstances I had previously only heard and read about – particularly the impoverished “Yankees” of the Appalachian North. I witnessed domestic abuse on multiple occasions. I often tell people Vermont has the worst poverty I have ever seen – it brought me to tears.

In many Vermont towns, pickup trucks blasting country music are paramount – cultural characteristics I always attached to the south(west). This amazed me because the history books always portrayed Yankees and Confederates as culturally polar opposites.

I befriended an older Italian-American woman named Mary. A child of Italian immigrants, and in great physical condition; she took me to her family cabin, high in the mountains, and shared tales of tearing up the NYC dance clubs during the 50’s and 60’s.

She also shared her family’s struggle – that of able-bodied Abruzzi men arriving to America with New York-sized hopes and dreams, only to spend the rest of their lives digging ditches to feed their families. The lucky ones made way to Argentina and fared much better.

Christopher Bernard’s novel Amor i Kaos: Beginning

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This is  a novel that we’ll serialize each month until we reach the end.

Amor i Kaos

A novel

By Christopher Bernard

This novel is dedicated to the memory of the Spanish novelist Juan Goytisolo (1931−2017), whose example has given many the courage to follow the drive of imagination and desire wherever it leads, in fear, in fascination, and in wonder:

The Blind Rider,
Count Julian in his pocket,
Juan sin tierra on his eyebrow,
Makbara at one ear,
the Solitary Bird at the other,
rides his blind horse over the blind country:
a walk, at first slow,
then a trot, faster,
then a canter, faster,
then a gallop, faster,
faster, and yet faster,
till the blind horse
opens blind wings
and lifts him
on the stones of the wind
into the blind
sky

_________________

The wind rattling the kitchen window, wind he had hardly been aware of, was suddenly clear as the shaking of a cage.

— But you are not in love with me.

There was some satisfaction, at least, in twisting the blade with his own hand.

She continued watching him.

—Yes . . .  No . . . I’m sorry . . .   I can’t anymore . . . I have to . . .live past you. It’s not you, it’s  . . . me . . .

She scowled at the inept cliché. Something she would usually have refused to commit, under penalty of an eternal shaming.

The shaking seemed to redouble its fury.

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Poetry from Keith Landrum

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An Example Of War

save your money

don’t throw it away
on me
there’s plenty
of others
out there
trying
to make
a buck
or some shit
whatever
they are
in
too
save it
you’ll need it
later
maybe
you need
it now
I don’t
know
shit about
anything I just
call ’em
as I see
those assholes
you’ve seen
them dressed
better
but not better
perfect teeth
guilty smile
sleeping
with Lucifer’s
last whore
you’ve seen those
assholes
I don’t know
what you’ve seen
outside
of that
but I’ve
seen enough
to know
I am
so sick
of seeing
the smile
of the American Flag
time clock
I have holes
in the head
heart
and liver
they are right
at a 1/2″ wide
about 70
or 80
of those
fuckers
this is one
of them