Alan Catlin On Padded Walls, Cave Paintings, Drinking In The End Times, and Kafka's In The Making

The Voice at 3 A.M.
after C. Simic

is the Lunatic after he has
escaped the asylum, after
he has bent the bars of a solitary
life as an acrobat would,
scribbling in the dark the code
of warped genius gone bad
on padded walls before he
finds a place to reside where
only changeling wolves
will go.  Here, among friends,
he stutters, but all who gather
to hear his words know how
easily prophecy may be confused
with truth. Paintings on cave
dwelling walls tell an epic tale,
but what does it mean?



Adios Amigos

After all the false alarms,
it was just another End Times
gathering, even with embossed
invitations, that seemed like
just another excuse for
a party.  Not only had
the novelty worn off,
but the pretense as well.
If a nude descended  a
staircase, no one would
have noticed or cared.
After awhile, even the black
humor, sick jokes about
death and the hereafter,
felt like hollow testimonials
for a deceased office colleague
everyone openly despised.
Only the drinking was real.
The drugs.




Working Class Country Children 1914
                    after August Sander

There is something curious,
something not quite right
with these children.

The two boys dressed in
their Sunday best, heads
shaved to the nubs like
junior Kafka’s before
the metamorphosis or
after the kinder-transports.

The girls are not exactly stunted
but have eyes that are too far part
to be normal, seem unusually intense,
are the kind of growing curiosities
that would be out of place
in a Borges bestiary.

There is a kind of native
intelligence in all these
children’s eyes. The kind
that is harmless now
but in adults, unspeakable.

Alan Catlin has published many chapbooks and full length book. His most recent chapbooks are the movie inspired Hollyweird and Blue Velvet winner of the 2017 Slipstream Chapbook Competition.

Ken Allan Dronsfield Sees The Orbs In The Weeping Willows, The Waltz Of Quartz Crystals, And The Bones In Old Red Clay

A Besieged Mind

A crack in the wall lets in the light from the stars.
Music echos through orbs in the weeping willows.
Dust in tears leave tracks in the fresh fallen snow.
Please Igor, can you give me just a little more light?

Dark holds my candle hostage at twilight's crescendo.
Contemptuous dreams through incessant screaming,
I can't feel strings with my hands of sanded mounds.
Quickly Igor, turn up the bass and let the walls crumble.

Insolent soulless itinerants trap a shard of burning sky.
Toss the aged planets into the blender creating a black
hole of unequivocal despair and treacherous margaritas.
Igor, hit the red button and watch me rise into the nebula!

Jellied stars with glimmering diamonds danced in the night.
Dingy creamy marshmallow giants stomped upon shells
of glowing peanuts long into a harvest on whiskey road.
Light another candle Igor, the night is still wanting her dead.

Remove a black top hat from the parlor rack, white gloves
aside, all these days of triumph and red transfixed illusion.
Waving the black obsidian wand, a magical fantasy exists.
Damn it Igor, I said the top hat, this conjures only clowns~!


As Dead Birds Circled

On a coolish night in late December
an odd stiff breeze was blowing from the North
we sat by the damn with gin and juice while
singing sonnets of warmer days now past.
We sang loudly while the old man strummed then
laughs on the right just as screams echoed left
the levee broke and all drift in the floods.
Cleanse my soul in the fierce muddy waters.

Weeping willows joyously laughed that night.
Tender were the sounds of bare footsteps in
darkness upon the slick moss covered rocks.
Leaves shimmered in a purple twilight as
the levee broke, and tears cascaded down
the breezes died to a whispering chant
windowless walls of tall earth and rock moved
crumbling into the water's great swallow.
Cleanse my soul in the fierce muddy waters.

A thousand eyes watched in a harsh horror
while great birds on the wing circled slowly
the damn broke and music faded away.
church bells rang out, wrapped in misty attire
blistered sacramental pious whimpers.
Quartz crystals resonate a timeless waltz
rust colored waters moved lifeless bodies
while dead birds on the wing circled slowly.
Cleanse our souls in the fierce muddy waters.

The weeping willows just laughed and rejoiced
as the great levee broke; we were still there
singing dirges; dead birds circled slowly;
baptism of souls join fierce muddy waters.
rising skyward; it's raining muddy tears.



An Absent of Present, Version 2


Has anyone seen me?


I know I used to be here,


perhaps there, somewhere.


I feel so lost, gone like


bones in old red clay.




Dust in a strong breeze.



I feel like a cat nine tail,


standing straight and tall


then bent over in marsh winds


waving to all around the lake,


lost fantasies rise skyward.



Passion blooms; life après.




Depth of a cranky shade


of listless yet excited bliss.


Blessed by the thoughts and


prayers of strangers, love


enhanced by a whisper.







But has anyone seen me?







Elders cry to the children


begging souls return home.


Keep of life's clock, turn the


key and spike the pendulum


humming a sonnet in rhyme.



I'm a musical note, sky-born!



As the demons and hunger


invoke sincere repentance


for thieving loaves of bread.


Will all distressing lives calmly


exhale their last well before the


hot ovens inhale your dead?


Into a grave with 7 million others!


Feel the chills of those evenings


long forgotten, repent your worst,


tarry along to knit your burial throw


forgive a fleeting wishful thirst,


look into the corner, next to the bin.



But, has anyone found me yet?


Ken Allan Dronsfield is a disabled veteran, poet and fabulist from New Hampshire, now residing on the southern plains of Oklahoma. Ken enjoys music, writing, walking in the woods at night and spending time with his cats Willa, Hemi, Turbo and Yumpy. He has one poetry collection, "The Cellaring" and is Co-Editor/Cover Artist for 2 poetry anthologies titled, "Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze" and "Dandelion in a Vase of Roses". His work has appeared in Literary Orphans, The Burningword Journal, Scarlet Leaf Review,  Black Poppy Review, The Blue Heron, The song is..., EMBOSS Magazine and more. Ken is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and twice for Best of the Net 2016-2017. Ken Loves Life!

Jonel Abellanosa Handles Snakes, Star Apples, Moon's Glow, And Venom

King Cobra

And where do I bring this smell

Of reticence, this O of olfactory

Greenness? The wind knows

How I linger, the ways I dwell

In what I might be forced to remember.

The wind always tosses the shapeliest

Fruit, most of the time mango or starapple,

Teasing my nose to inhale the circulars.

I bring my crudest ways

Of recall to the violets.

It sometimes disappoints,

But often makes me realize

I’m a monarch without a kingdom.

Coral Snake

And how do I keep myself hidden

In leaves when I smell the violets?

The rain lends its invitation

And I follow the smells of moss

And lichen. In the forest

Water, when it rises, often

Wears its royal robe of glimmers.

How convincing its argument

That if surfaces are glassy

Transparence is its depths.

I soak myself in the gurgling flow,

Out of my heart’s reticence

And into the moon’s glow.

Taipan

And if my reputation moves faster

Than the wind? You don’t know me.

I’m shyer than the bandicoot, living

Inland, invisible as the homeless man.

I prefer to be left alone, slithering

In abandoned moonlight. The floral

Wind balms my hunger, and I often

Spend the night hungry. Starlight

Is my nourishment, water my soothing

Prayer. They say my venom is the

Deadliest, but I don’t have to defend

Myself, until I’m driven into the corner

Where ignorance, prejudice and irrational,

Unfounded fear might mean

The end of my life.

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry has appeared in close to two hundred journals and anthologies including, Rattle, Anglican Theological Review, Poetry Kanto, Filipino-American Artist Directory, The McNeese Review and Marsh Hawk Review. Early in 2017 Alien Buddha Press published his third chapbook, “Meditations,” His latest poetry collection, “Songs from My Mind’s Tree” is forthcoming (Clare Songbirds Publishing House). He is a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and Dwarf Stars Award nominee.

Michael Lee Johnson Observes The Common Horse Fly As A Parisian Adventurer In The August Wind And No More Stepping On Him

Heaven is My Horse Fly

A common horse fly
peripatetic traveler
vacationing in my world
into my bathroom,
(ride me cowboy, fly)
it’s summer time-
lands on my toilet seat
pit stops at Nikki’s Bar & Grill,
kitty litter box, refuels.
Thirteen round trips
buzzing my skin and skull-
he calls them “short runs.”
Steady pilot, good mileage,
frequent flier credits.
I swat his war journey,
splat, downed, then, an abrupt end.

Alexandra David-Nee

She edits her life from a room made dark
against a desert dropping summer sun.
A daring traveling Parisian adventurer,
ultimate princess turning toad with age--
snow drops of white in her hair, tiny fingers
thumb joints osteoarthritis
she corrects proofs at 100, pours whiskey,
pours over what she wrote
scribbles notes directed to the future,
applies for a new passport.
With this amount of macular degeneration,
near, monster of writers' approaches,
she wears no spectacles.
Her mind teeters between Himalayas,
distant Gobi Desert.
Running reason through her head for a living,
yet dancing with the youthful world of Cinderella,
she plunges deeper near death into Tibetan mysticism,
trekking across snow covered mountains to Lhasa, Tibet.
Nighttime rest, sleepy face, peeking out that window crack
into the nest, those quiet villages below
tasting a reality beyond her years.

No Longer a Swinger

This painted cat
on my balcony
hangs in this sun,
bleaches out
it's wooden
survival kit,
cut short-
then rots
chips
paint
cracks
widen in joints,
no infant sparrow wings 
nestled in this hole
beneath its neck-
then falls down.
No longer a swinger
in latter days, August wind.

Oh Carol, Poem

You treat me like soiled underwear.
I work my way through.
I gave up jitterbug dancing, that cha-cha-chá,
all my eccentric moves, theatric acting, poetry slams.
I seek refuge away old films, nightmares
you jumping from my raspberry Geo Chevy Tracker
repeat you stunt from my black 2002 S-10 Chevy truck, Schaumburg, IL.
I toss tarnished photographs out windows of hell
seek new selfies, myself.
I’m a rock-in-roll Jesus, a damn good poetry man,
talent alone is not enough storage space to strip
you away from my skin, distant myself from your
ridicule, those harsh words you can’t take back
once they are out like Gorilla Glue, as Carl Sandburg spoke about.
I’m no John Lennon want to be;
body sculptured David Garrett, German violin masterpiece,
nor Ace Hardware, Midwest, CEO.
All I want to be respected in heart of my bright sun,
engaging these shadows endorsing these gray spots in my life.
Send me away from these drum beats that break me in half,
jungle thunder jolts dislodging my heart
popping my earlobes over the years,
scream out goodbye.
No more stepping on me cockroach style,
swatting me, a captured fly.

Michael Lee Johnson lived ten years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  Mr. Johnson published in more than 1016 publications, his poems have appeared in 35 countries, he edits, publishes 10 different poetry sites.  Michael Lee Johnson, Itasca, IL, nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards for poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/and 2 Best of the Net 2017.  He also has 154 poetry videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos.  He is the Editor-in-chief of the anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762 and Editor-in-chief of a second poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses which is now available here:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089

Michael Prihoda And A Whole Lotta Love On Shot-Gunned Stationary And An Ocean Muffled By Sawdust

whole lotta love

i. 
whatever

ii.
not today

iii. 
i thought we agreed
cruise ships
were
for sissies
&
the point
of Nasa
is the same as SSRIs
for those
unwilling
to notice

iv.
the sound
of
the garage door
opening
made auto
by wiring
i do not
understand

v.
are you going or coming?

vi. 
will you pick up some milk
on
the way
home?

vii.
just because
the seven
names
for children
i created survived
& we
lost
yours truly,

viii.
i thought we agreed

ix.
agreed

x. 
we

xi. 
i

 
everybody knows this is nowhere

the dog
ripples

his tongue
over teeth & lips

as a stream
across random stones.

a moment is only
as brief

as our disengagement
from imprinting

allows.
are we alone?

no, i am
looking at it.

are we
alone?


 
Proposal (a pineapple thrown into the Seine)

the meaning
of events

saving us
from a riot.

look to the hefted
mountains

in this thistled
spring

of showers
of malady &

the elegance
of just trying

to tell another
person they matter.

the day is ending.
the day is almost over.

i’m wide awake,
ready to introduce

a dragon
to these lands

of shot-gunned
stationary.
 
Proposal 6

of former
thoughts

in other
lives.

a mug cupped
to ear

sounds of
an Atlantic

muffled
by sawdust.

a taxonomic
defense

for haha,
the openness

in being
mortified

& feeling
alright

with the treatment
of animals.

you act in service
of a Byzantine panoply,

a simulacra
of gods.

our creations
tail us

through
dimensions,

invite a worry, a sorrow,
a cork

in bottles
untrapped by messages,

floating, briefly,
on the front porch.

dereliction hiding
rusted cutlery

& an insufficiency
of bandages


Michael Prihoda is a poet, editor, and teacher living in central Indiana. He is the editor of After the Pause, an experimental literary magazine and small press. In addition, he is the author of five poetry collections, the most recent of which is The First Breath You Take After You Give Up (Weasel Press, 2016).

John Dorsey Returns Speaking of Stars Covered In Rust, Woody Guthrie, And A Heroin Needle Sun

Highway D 



here the sun is a hot spike

a needle in the arm

of some lonely field

grown over with stars

covered in rust



your stomach is always half full

& the car never starts 

before your first cup of coffee

it wouldn’t dare.





California Blood Money 

for david smith 

 

woody guthrie tasted its soil 

dancing in starlight 

he winked at the skyline 



what is it like   

to run your hands 

through so much regret?




John Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw's Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016) and Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Press, 2017). He is the current Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com. 

Patrick Herron And The Hollow That Is The Only Part That Does Not Hurt

Wednesday from Light
for Booker

apples and onions        and violins and         pesticides                and when viewed from a bridge the horizon is only half-constructed                the knife an ape selects for gorging is the blade choosing its hand                various timbres of icy water sing across the bowed fibers of our skulls                and the smell of sewaged seaspray fogs as the roaches as we are now called        we the worthless        are swept down into               falling off       our legs now running upon the air between the steel and the water                and someone's just learning how to count us        the forty-seven percent        the ninety nine                who is it who counts              my beautiful boy he is learning as he goes        please don't push him off                the helicopters need trust between them before they can make music                and so if he is to fall        at least let his curls hear the quartet                       how about our sweet beginnings and chopped vegetable tears plucked from soil to lighten the load                the roman road                yes it's a load we load to unload and unload to load                it's a logic                and we share it with our peelings                        the lacrimal bone is absent from amphibians                or                maybe it's just tardy or       wants nothing to do with tears at all        maybe it's trying to get out of the water        or        maybe any more would be an unsophisticated superfluity                and you are similarly disinclined to travel beyond       the elegant sufficiency yet you made it this far       and so                let's exchange gratitudes        they sure scissor paper platitudes and stony attitudes                               what there is to say here that is never desired to say is that                it's not the bullet that kills        it's the hole        it swallows every moment before it              and when I say        I love you        I mean that I desire the chance to elaborate        and that is to say        that I wished you would never have to learn              that the hollow is the only part that doesn't hurt                        to cross the event line is a cold release from time              so I wonder is emptiness employed or unemployed       how are we to count that                so I wonder is love conflation or expansion                how are we to feel the sound as we count our way through the choppers to forge our horizons

"you're taut like a thriller, but how are you organized?" the rock asks the river


Patrick Herron is Senior Research Scientist and Lecturing Fellow at Duke University, Durham, NC, US. As a poet, Herron was an early adopter of copyleft for literary publishing, an inventor of retrieval-based poetics in the 1990s (later and more widely known as Flarf), and is also the author of several volumes of poetry, including Be Somebody (Effing 2008). Herron's poems and essays have appeared in a number of journals including Fulcrum, Jacket and Andrei Codrescu's Exquisite Corpse. Herron is the creator of  His 1999 new media art project, p r o x i m a t e . o r g (http://classic.rhizome.org/artbase/artwork/2219/), was the first poetics website added to the permanent collection of the New Museum, New York City, US. At Duke Herron has recently created the Text Mining Laboratory and is a member of the faculties of Information Science + Studies (ISS), Computational Media Arts & Culture (CMAC) and the Masters of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts (MFA|EDA).