A Narrow Channel Once again I walk those long baroque corridors. A bird is singing; I have heard its song before. Butterflies rise disturbed by the wind yet resettle to wait for the next gust. The book falls open at the same page. Will no-one rescue me? Oh Carol It was a night just right for singing Neil Sedaka songs. No wonder he had Leonard Cohen on his mind. Apparently gluttony is not recognized as a sin by the individual links in the food chain— viz. this quite large spider with a wasp of similar size pinioned in its pincers but flipped over so they travel back to back; & the conjunction being hungrily tracked by a lizard that is smaller than either of them. Per severe When he presented his latest premise he said it's the same as the old one & the one that came before that but I'll keep on presenting it because one of these times its time will come.
Poetry from Christopher Bernard
#littlebylittle (A sequel to “How to Save the World: A New Year’s Resolution”) By Christopher Bernard 1. “Little by little” was the phrase for everything she feared to face, to keep her quiet, calm, unfazed despite whatever she must do that otherwise might make her crazed with the enormity of the true. 2. Who was she? A heart of life, loyal, strong, generous, kind, true, not without strife, not perfect yet good, for me, for us. I save and keep her name. Her love was stronger than life. She taught me love 3. Little by little, we can do what we must do. Strangers, friends, pull back a little here, just so, a little now. Prevent the end. Protect the earth from our dark arts. Preserve the world with your strong heart. _____ Christopher Bernard’s latest collection of poems, A Socialist’s Garden of Verses, won a 2021 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021.”
Poetry from Frankie Laufer
NOT MAJOR HOOPLES BOARDING HOUSE: I just returned from a long mostly silent journey. To discover I just inherited a twelve-room house. It feels vaguely like the last house. But don’t ask me its location. Exterior needs a little paint but don’t they all. Remodeling seems to be a work in progress, just like so many of my paintings. There are tenants occupying most of the rooms. But even those that are currently empty one often hears the whispers of the past. It’s rumored that Tiny Tim produced his best music in room number three. The Venus room looks wonderful, but Saturn has done the decorating. Surya shines bright and bold, but I find it too hot…Jim Morrison felt the same way. A hell of a fight breaks out in room number six, Mars breaks a window or two. The Moon is milky sweet but is afraid of Rahu’s shadow. That snake scares me too. Why oh why did they decide to be roommates! Mercury is fast but sometimes outruns himself and forgets to lock the door. Jupiter is gracious and our guiding light, watching over everyone like a sleepy owl. In time they all will transit to other rooms. Google maps says follow the neon sign shouting Color TV and Free Coffee! Damage deposits and thirty days’ notice required.
SHADOWS: My dear departed wife collected dolls. I am now collecting shadows. Storage is not a problem. This collection is not for sale. I normally don’t play favorites but this one has all my attention. Its exact location is hard to pinpoint. Google maps does not help. It often appears under a passing cloud or nestled beside me in the warmth of my shadow. Often it shows up in a dream, wearing a blond wig and a t-shirt that says I love Cairn Terriers. I even wrote a long and beautiful love letter to it, but it was too long and too beautiful. Now it’s gone AWOL… was it stolen or just a runaway? Is there an app for this? Searching Frantically! I might put on a milk carton… Have You Seen Me? My friend Jenny collects sentences.
Frankie Laufer is an oil painter and writer living in Walla Walla, WA. His paintings have been shown in both the SF Bay area and Eastern Washington state. His poems have recently appeared on Piker Press.
The expressive nature of both painting and writings creates the possibility of rediscovering lost or forgotten feelings and the possibility of new discovery.
Poetry from John Culp
Sold the path through the Walls of Disbelief,
for nothing can still the Heart
than then when
than then when
Faith's steps time Blend
Delicious fruit taste
Delicious
I am Stupid
Yesterday
& Eyes open
taste the light
that
Hearts drink
In waters I swim
Alive running
Thank you
for the nothing
I'm creative today & your
name is as good as
mine
Ours Creation
♡
I'm Love ARE WE
the shared
is a lie where
All is in
sharing
Just rests
Triumphant
without an
opponent
You're good for the
nothing
Knowing the Completeness
the Greatness
unbounded freedoms
GAMELESS Victory
Comfort sleeping
on the Granite warmed
from Beneath without a Blanket.
Cold as snow Drawn
to Life from within.
Thanks for
the nothing that
fills my Heart
from within where
sharing has creation
Beyond what any
thought possible
to give.
Creation is already
with or without
my attention to
detail.
Thank you for the nothing
where Welcome Stands
to fill the VOID
Creation's Call
My Heart Sings,
And rises as if yours
is mine all along
without evidence the
LOVE Pillars
Built Before
time Began.
And I'll find my cup Full
Before You Stand to Smile
& Pour LOVE'S Grace,
Knowing Full Well
the LOVE we share
Creation's damage
Broken clocks , all to say, Before & After,
Where NOW Stands the Glory!
Poetry from Jack Galmitz
it would be late for you to come to my bed wake me brush my forehead and say belatedly "I'm proud of you." Maybe that's why we die. When it's too late. ******** Shadows are elongated today. I am slouching the other way toward an art supply store to pick up some canvases, tubs of paint, pig bristle brushes and charcoal. It's cold. The earth won't yield to my weight. A stray dog and I look at each other. Neither of us can decide whether we're right for one another. Then we separate. A woman hides behind her window curtain. She's beguiled by me, my smile. I agree with David Hume. What I see are the ideas I work with. The row houses to my left are appealing. As are the pinnate leaves in the gardens. As are the people. ************* You have to have a barn. The warped red wood the sunlight through its slats the straw that's left on the ground. It's required if you want to write a poem to a country meant to last. You just say what you see. You are a cirrus cloud. You are a witness. Like the scarecrow there in the dry brown field wearing the farmer's hat who has left to work in Long John Silver's restaurant in town. The supervisor is strapped to his back. He plows the people. He fetches bags of fried fish and hamburgers. His mule is now a tube of glue for children's projects. He makes about 20K a year. Enough to make repairs to the home he built to last for all his years.
Poetry from Ian C. Smith
Foreknowledge
My mind drifts to arcane words, then I read,
turn pages, find them waiting for me there.
Are these eerie messages I should heed?
Chance? A higher power, malignant, fair?
Loose thoughts alight on out of contact friends,
presaging their emails in my Inbox
banjaxing me, more disturbing godsends
nearing my final act, hands circling clocks.
In these times of surveillance, a feeling
of being monitored persists, a weight,
also, mumbo-jumbo’s cant, this reeling
from sense for one dubious about fate,
yet I like the image of shadows cast
by guardian angels’ wings. Safe at last?
**************
Their Names Daydreaming of youthful trove’s cloth of gold, I can’t recall the name of an old flame, names’ past mode gentle, today’s, blazoned, bold. I see her, hear her voice, this long-gone dame. Stab in the dark searching keeps us apart. Stymied, my tired brain reaches impasses. I tick off the alphabet, letter smart, cease rummaging, revisit schools, classes. Alma, Beatrice, Cassandra, Diane, Elvie, Florence, Gwenda, from days sublime, Helen, Irene, Judith, her golden tan. Katie, Lorraine, Meredith, down through time, names’ threnody, faded array of choice. I think that haunting flashback dame was Joyce.
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 John Thomas Allen
The Dumbwaiter Here she is, anything can be asked of her sea gravel underfoot. Behind a guillotine before the soda jerk opens it to a glass vegetable spread with cutlass smiles, her mime complexion in this 8mm photograph to be still life beauty before a night of trekking because she only wants to escape our plan to move away from a Lady in a Lake through dumb waiter lobbies filled with hands crawling to catch her spilling voodoo guitar hands The bug carnies sing the same song, but different as a melody polished by children with cancer, or to brush her filament wings as angel flutes which can break the sound mirror with a cough; to share a tune with black space, and kinless troubadours to light a wick over their tents so they can run back with flashlights.
John Thomas Allen wants to be a cat man instead of a cat lady, thus engendering a gender revolution. He likes Christian tarot, JK Huysman’s, and Charles Wright. He’s been in Arsenic Lobster Journal, Sein Und Werden, and Grey Sparrow Journal.