This poem by Gonzalinho da Costa is a finalist in the Furious Gazelle’s Halloween contest. The contest’s winner will be announced Friday. View the rest of the finalists here.
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This poem by Michael Puican is one of the finalists of the Furious Gazelle’s Halloween contest. The contest’s winner will be announced Friday. View the rest of the finalists here.
Halloween
Tonight we can be anyone we want:
a woman says she’s entropy
but nobody gets it; a lobster
pulls a card from the deck with his claw.
It matches the one in my hand. Outside,
a werewolf screams into a pay phone
then deposits more coins. A while ago,
a passive aggressive divorced a narcissist
with manic tendencies. Their daughter
showed signs of regression so the court
assigned her a lawyer. There are tests
designed to unmask one’s maladjustments,
personality bents, significant elevations
on the not-in-the-child’s-best-interest scale.
The court-ordered psychologist told me
denial would not be tolerated
in his sessions. I looked back at him, listening
to the air conditioner kick on, then off.
I wish it were five years from now.
Then it is. I see my daughter and ex-wife
like binary stars, bright, cheerful
and a billion miles away. In the lobby
an alien samples the quiche, he talks
about the building’s footprint. A cool
breeze from the open window stops me—
the sweet scent of fallen leaves and rain.
It is a difficult joy that rises out of grief.
A crow caws along with the music, then stops.
In another room a woman pulls off
her goat’s head, a man tears up his face.
Michael Puican has had poetry published in Poetry, New England Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, and Courtland Review, among others. He writes poetry reviews for TriQuarterly, Kenyon Review, and Another Chicago Magazine, among others. His chapbook, 30 Seconds, was selected as winner of the 2004 Tia Chucha Chapbook Contest. He was a member of the 1996 Chicago Slam team and is current board president of the Guild Literary Complex in Chicago.
This short poem by Fain Rutherford is one of the finalists of the Furious Gazelle’s Halloween contest. The contest’s winner will be announced Friday. View the rest of the finalists here.
All Saints’
The sisters are vampires this year.
Fully costumed, a week early,
they sit watching cartoon penguins
hijack a cargo ship.
The jagged gaps of their grins
lit up by invisible
candles on their tongues.
Fain Rutherford
Over the years, Fain has worked as a soldier, lawyer, university lecturer, rock-climbing guide, survival instructor and at-home-dad. He currently resides in the desert of central Washington State. His recent poems appear or are scheduled to appear in Right Hand Pointing, Poetry Quarterly, Front Porch Review, Eunoia Review, Connotation Press, and Apeiron Review.
This poem is one of the finalists of the Furious Gazelle’s Halloween contest. The contest’s winner will be announced Friday.
By Twiggy Munford
Pumpkin Ice Cream
This is crazy – I mean
buying pumpkin ice cream
and having it drip from the cone
onto my fingers, sticky,
licking as fast as I can
before the big melt down.
Glass slipper beware!
Orange pints on shelf scream
this new flavor of the month.
Never heard of pumpkin ice cream.
Is this your idea Peter Peter?
Pumpkins are meant for knife attacks –
holey faces carved, seeds chunked,
guts stewed for witches’ brew,
pie-in-the-face pumpkin. Splat!
Candle inside lights hollows –
smile frown, square teeth chunks, triangle eyes.
Go feed witches and war mongers
pumpkin ice cream.
Have it drip on weapons and brooms.
Have them turn into rusty relics.
Will make pumpkin face smile.
Is this crazy?
The Furious Gazelle is continuing to serialize Charles Bane’s new book of poetry, Love Poems. You can find more of his poetry here.
You A Certain Chord
You a certain chord or
movement of a dance as
you crash in a tide and spill
like music or drugs into blood
and we down onto sheets,
your hair in kapok roots and
I think what bird is this, with
wings outspread, crying under
me?
When I Despair
When I despair, I hold
to you, the you that
cannot imagine floes or
among the masses one sees
everyday pained in
newspaper photos, the loss
of all. What can’t be
endured is separation.
I write, but you are my
religion too and I think
if the world could only glimpse
one face, all would be remade.
Is this not so? Can we walk with
all the population on the boulevards,
and lay all together with our
hands across our chests, looking
at the stars?
Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook ( Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems ( Kelsay Books, 2014). His work was described by the Huffington Post as “not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them.” A writing contributor for The Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida.
The Furious Gazelle is continuing to serialize Charles Bane’s new book of poetry, Love Poems. You can find more of his poetry here.
Untitled
Let it cut deeper
love, until it flows
inside the blood
It Flows Unstopped
It flows unstopped
into waters I have never
seen; into a father’s arms
holding you when you sleep
or a panther drinking as your fingers
rake my hair. It is rockets
over skies and buds unseen,
and the cloaks of night arching as
a life is put away and another
dawns and spills in ink.
Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook (Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems (Kelsay Books, 2014). His work was described by the Huffington Post as “not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them.” A writing contributor for The Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida.
THE CLOCK
The Furious Gazelle is continuing to serialize poems from Charles Bane, Jr.’s book Love Poems. Last week’s poem can be found here.
Forever Now And All I Might Have
Forever now and all I might have been. I have never loved like
this. Never everything. Never from town to town, or where I lay asleep;
or my hand straight and deer watching
as they take, hollowed before dark
and venturing to where day breaks.
The Furious Gazelle is continuing to serialize Charles Bane’s new book of poetry, Love Poems. You can find last week’s poem here.
For My Son
I will not waiver or protest
that the wait is hard to bear;
The parent-to-be is patient Continue reading
The Two
I think when God
walked shy to Moses,
stars clustered in his hands,
he led our rabbi down
to the orchards of the heart.
The two walked near the other
and traded dreams like brothers
before sleep. They paused
afield and watched the sun,
lifted by themselves in unison,
race overhead. And Moses knew
not to disappoint this man
with faltering steps or speech.
God wept uncomprehending
of his artistry and Moses scratched
some lines in stone to honor
a beloved friend.
Charles Bane, Jr. is the American author of The Chapbook (Curbside Splendor, 2011) and Love Poems (Kelsay Books, 2014). His work was described by the Huffington Post as “not only standing on the shoulders of giants, but shrinking them.” A writing contributor for The Gutenberg Project, he is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida.
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