Literary as hell.
J.M. Templet is one of our Halloween writing contest finalists for 2015. We’ll be publishing our contest finalists every day until Halloween, when we’ll announce our contest’s winner.
existential trolls
We set up under rainbows
no one notices the crunch of bones
or the rattle of stone
as we gorge on candy
left from last year
perhaps a hand might be attached
we don’t mind
the pink the white
the awful red
the purple and blue
they all mask the ugly
faces we hide from each
other
by Carl Boon
The journey takes her past
the faces of the women
in the village making tea.
She thinks to photograph them
to make a book, but they're so many,
and some trail children
through valleys of flowers
until rock, until sea, until
the world's run out of wonders.
What have I eaten?
(Inspired by Sylvia Plath)
In response to my mother’s nagging question,
“What have you eaten today, Annie?”
What have I eaten?
Lies and smirks.
My diet calls for uncertainty,
I’ve got a hunger for what hurts.
Breadcrumbs of grumbles,
And bits of anxieties unsung,
Tastes that sit familiar on my tongue.
(I think I am made of dust and thirsty for your rain.)
All I have eaten for 13 months
Are leftover scraps of stale hope
And heaping portions of quiet patience.
My big eyes for love left unfulfilled,
My stomach full of deprivation.
***********************
Annie is a writer/poet named after her mother’s favorite book, Anne of Green Gables (so it’s spelled Anne-with-an-E!). She’s obsessed with poetry, stargazing, antiques, & animals, and she’s always on the lookout for unusual and/or beautiful words to record in her notebook, which she never leaves the house without. For more of Annie’s poetry and writing, follow her on Twitter (@Beannie129) or email her at aturn139@gmail.com.
The Size of Fruit
When I was born
with disappointing body parts,
Mother cried in tears
the size of full green grapes,
did her best to hide their shapes,
make me smile like slices of a cantaloupe.
They hired surgeons by the herd,
combed the country for a plan
to help me walk, certain it was just a dream.
Because they didn’t quit in
centers of that prayer, I’ve stood
and walked for many years.
When Father read the fatal slide—
Leukemia with all the dots,
he couldn’t, wouldn’t try to talk.
Mother’s death at 33 left him there
in kitchen nooks with tart green olives
in a jar, martini glasses empty, clean
and put away, nothing left to celebrate.
He cried in plums, but kept them all away from us,
like pit bulls famous for their teeth.
Silence robbed so many years.
I told him straight I wanted some
acquaintance with her countenance,
the size of sweaters in her drawers,
the way she touched piano keys,
filled the room with sweet ballets inside his ears.
He played deafer than he was
the times I asked, punched his stomach
way too hard with question marks.
When death took him,
I wandered through a wilderness—
no figs on trees, no leaves on hope,
no corn beneath the stalks and strings,
no avocado under skins;
what scraps were there were bruised by then.
Desperate is desperate. I learned too late
dumping grief is not the goal—
you follow ivy to a grave and sit with it—
let the weeping willow weep.
My tears the size of coconuts,
I shook the tree and set one loose,
broke it quickly on a rock,
drank the milk, then found a plum,
seeded it, chewed the meat,
squeezed the juice and guzzled it.
If only I weren’t thirsty still—
I suck on ice all day long.
Give Me Grace I Do Not Have
The only thing that’s green today,
a heavy tank beside the bed.
He sucks on borrowed oxygen—
I bring him ice cream, watch it melt.
The final day of Father’s life,
a catheter runs his leg like caterpillars
up a branch, his fingers scratching
at the tape. I lotion skin around the edge.
I’m listening to piercing screams,
crows inside a muted glimpse
of Hitchcock films in black and white.
Pills will yield a scrap of rest,
but not for long. The real scuffle is with God
and what he says will happen next.
I pace the floor, leave the room,
return when I can breathe again.
His eyes are closed like sleeping owls.
I hear some noise, a vacuum sticking to a rug;
it’s sucking dust I want to stay,
anything to cover this.
“I want to die at home,” he says.
I sit up straight—a Blue Jay startled from a fence.
To steer myself away from wrecks,
I scribble on a notepad just inside my purse.
A poem smells old—mothballs in a dresser drawer—
all I own for coping skills, shaking stilts.
I’m not standing tall enough.
Times like this are not for kittens
whining for their mother’s milk.
I hold his hand, wishing it were mine, not his
inside this tome, between the shale
and blooming poppies in a field.
The quilt I was to keep him warm,
losing stitches one by one.
The hospice nurse suggests
we sing “Amazing Grace.”
A eunuch in the land of love,
I have no voice.
Mugs of Tea with Hemlock Leaves
I’m here to place the last
of yellow marigolds to keep
the insects off romaine.
Here to water what is left.
The hose is crimped, its rubber
far too hot to touch.
An August sun that comes in June
could fry a slice of bacon
spread on lids of garbage cans.
I raise the blinds, stretching
out what sight is left.
Pods of lilies pop and bloom.
Their stems are 8 ft. tall at least.
I beg my husband: “Please buy stakes,
some sturdy rope.” He doesn’t see
our garden shows how seasons walk,
trip and fall. Dirt to daisy, then
to petals dropping off.
Embedded rocks along the grass,
once a trail to pleasantries,
mutate into shale and cairn.
Our neighbor has a hemlock tree.
Trumpets vines along the trellis
just outside our windowpane,
one deceased or getting there
in shrinking, melancholy strings,
the other wears a symphony.
The screen and view
insulted by a cobweb’s map.
Black widows or a brown recluse—
either way, the bite is sitting,
waiting there—
some stray arm will come too close.
Empty Answers—Empty Drawers
Liver Cancer started this.
Spreading fast like poison ivy—
lymph nodes to her burning ribs.
A prayer chain and a team of doctors
working hard to build a bridge to promised health
are not enough to calm me down.
Sending gifts—this fruitless fruit
of 13 scarves, sweaters for the trips to church,
all that tea, quiet music making noise
when rest is all she dreams about—
this isn’t very practical, when someone
spends entire weeks curled beside a toilet bowl.
Someone on the prayer chain types: “God is Big!”
Well, I am small, cannot sleep, lost inside a queen-sized bed,
twilight comes, then all the hours attached to moons
grow thick like building calluses.
I suck on pens, guzzle tea, notice that I haven’t touched
our black remote since March arrived
and this is June. Dozing off, head first into dinner plates,
I wipe the oil & vinegar, mashed potatoes off my face,
thank my husband for the towel.
It’s 2 a.m.—I haven’t hit the pillow yet,
grabbed a shower, answered e-mail, paid my bills.
I open windows, gulp the air to wake me up,
eavesdrop as the crickets sing, their clicking slippers
made of glass and fairytales.
I throw my laptop on the mattress, pick it up,
try again to write about what should not be her destiny.
It could be a Hallmark card or putting down
a facile pen, pinning ears to baser truths
that halted sterling symphonies. I don’t know.
She doesn’t say. Both of us are weak and tired
from tragic times divided only by their themes.
I’ve Googled every niche and corner
matching roads where this might lead.
When she calls, we listen to the silences
longer than we ever have—
breathe and sigh, a quick duet.
She’s got the guts to call it Cancer;
I’m the one who calls it IT.
We’re two birds that fly by strange
coincidence down chimney flues,
end up in the kitchen nook—
no idea where to go, losing feathers,
running into furniture and painted walls.
A whistling kettle on the stove
is making sounds I cannot hear.
I want to be a marching band
that hurries ‘cause it’s raining hard.
All she says is: “Aren’t you tired
of playing strong no matter what?”
We agree like matching socks.
I will sit until a fleet of hummingbirds
comes tapping at the window glass, self-assured
that nectar’s still inside a Calla Lily in a vase
poised upon the dresser’s wood.
Empty answers. Empty drawers.
Full of stuff, too much to move and organize.
I carry crystal with both hands to water
what is still alive. My husband turns the faucet on,
tells me that I need some sleep. Of course he’s right.
She’ll need me in the breakdown lane.
Hustle, Hustle—Hurry Up!
On this one day, I hated the shapes
of both our phones. Even tore one
off the wall, then put it back.
Stared at my insanity — until one rang.
Vomited beside the bed
before I ever answered it.
I have Cancer in my liver,
in my lymph nodes, in my bones.
My best friend’s voice hit me
like five olive pits thrown inside
disposals in the kitchen sink.
The silence gap—Grand Canyon style.
Then I can tell by listening,
she’s fighting hard, hard enough
to win some war, busy in a distant land.
She lives too far away to touch;
since all the gifts I mail off
aren’t medicine and she has that,
I stand between the shale and cairn.
She’s been a living, breathing angel
all her life. Every move is hurting her.
I understand why Rimbaud
scratched upon a brick on Paris streets:
Merde a Dieu! Artists try to be polite—
sometimes life destroys a clause.
Never certain when to call—don’t
break minutes when she sleeps—
they’re weak saltines. Don’t crush a second
in the day, where Cancer isn’t
what begins a sentence rolling in her head.
Pitch the stupid pansies in their pony packs;
buy perennials in bloom; grab the shovel,
move the dirt. Hustle, hustle, hurry up—
find that God-damned Northern Star,
cradle it in bubble wrap,
double check your address book—
ship it Fed-Ex Overnight.
Janet Buck is a seven-time Pushcart Nominee and the author of three full-length collections of poetry; her work has won numerous literary awards and she has published roughly 4,000 poems and non-fiction essays in print and internet journals around the globe during her 18 year writing career. Buck’s most recent poems are scheduled for publication in forthcoming issues of The Milo Review, Mistfit Magazine, The Ann Arbor Review, Antiphon, River Babble, PoetryBay, and other journals worldwide.
i keep the
universe
in my
knees
the ground
is hard
and
cold
this night will
never
have a
day
my mouth is
wide
and has no
name
Lost
Geese get lost in mist, sidetracked
in heavy stillness, dew-wings
from burn-off, just around the corner
of mountains no one can see
but remember are there, reliable
as geese calling out to each other.
Some are unable to follow the lead,
break from the pattern. Their sounds
bounce off clouds and mountains.
Stillness is stirred from the low ground,
biting the air. At noon, still, no one can see.
It might get worse. It is better to sit tight,
hope for the weather to shift, clouds lifting
like a flock of geese over transparent lakes.
Astragalus
If you want to be a herbalist,
open this secret like a woman’s silk kimono.
You have to have some knowledge of tinctures.
Otherwise, it has no purpose.
You will go crazy trying to make cures
and it won’t work for charlatans.
If you do not know what you are doing,
you are little more than larva
feeding on astragalus leaves.
It is the natural gum Tragacanth you are after.
Twist into ribbons or flakes, powdered,
absorbed with water, stir into a paste
the size of an ankle bone. Otherwise,
it is useless. The mixture is not right.
The cure will fail the patient.
You might as well try to cure using a kimono.
At least once a week
3 kids are thrown into the frying pan
carelessly yolked together
olive oil siphoned off
black & salt left out on purpose
the shells still have transparent film
stuck to the side of the garbage disposal
homework crumbled like cake is there too
There is surplus salmon pink late notices
broken shards of glass
swept from the kitchen aluminum floor
overflowing for space Continue reading
We walked the downtown
Busy streets stark naked,
Holding black candles lit
High above our heads.
We shouted at business
Men in expensive black
Pinstriped suits, “Wear red,
You must remember, wear red!”
People sitting at outside
Tables of the Black Palm
Restaurant stared in disbelief,
Whispering amongst themselves,
When we sat down to join them.
**********
Paige Simkins is a poet who lives with her dog, Sir Simon, in Tampa, Florida. She holds a Bachelor degree in English (CRW) and a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science. She works as a Public Librarian and is very passionate about poetry, libraries, VW Beetles, and visual art. Her poems have appeared in Stepping Stones Magazine, Burningword Literary Journal, The Wayfarer, Crack the Spine and the Tulane Review.
it was not supposed to rain today
none of the mourners
has brought an umbrella
gentle mist
is beads up
on black suits
polished shoes
runs down the sides
of a mahogany casket
tracing manic patterns
across its burls and bird’s eyes
tracing a serpentine
path through a forest
of nicked up chairs
and tumbledown couches
he finds his way
out to a decaying deck
standing still
his mind consumed
with nothing
he begins to wonder
how many times
he would have to jump
before the wood
at his feet
gave way
while most folks
would lean
on a stubbly brick wall
welcoming all casual
Observers to bask
in their carefully
crafted casualness
perhaps a cigarette
burning forgotten
in their hand
Sophie looks
to the untrained eye
(and those schooled
in observational technique)
as though she is a critical
component of the building
as though the architect
has placed her thus
with great intent
form following function
poor Sophie
it appears
has been tasked
with holding up
that damn wall
J. Lewis Fleming, a graduate of Michigan State University, lives in a house on a hill in the fog with nine other mammals. He was poetry editor of: nibble, Cranial Tempest, and CannedPhlegm. Fleming has seven chapbooks to his publishing credit. The first: Delirious and Purple, from Kitty Litter Press. The best: Shades of Green, from Alternating Current Press. His favorite: it is winter, from nibble press. Tweets @nibblepoems.
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