Literary as hell.
Sleeping there
enclosed and loving
even as you breathe
unaware of mockingbirds
talking in the dark and you
turn, eyes opening, to look
at me and each time you do
I fall. I am whole in you
and you in me are
daughter and wife, but I say
only, birds that were night
are breaking now as day.
What I whisper
is not single celled,
but a colony and trees
bent in light leaving from
their stems wash the depths
of me. I am stunned when
morning comes; dew beads
every blade, and we who
loved the night shadows
are painted green.
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.
There is no
nothing as I
sleep inside
your soul.
I knew that poetry transforms
the ordinary of the soul
but like Creation I did not
sense what you, so lovely
made in gathering light,
writes in me to the margin
of 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.
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.
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 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 hills are undone
by you when you
walk home carrying
a sheep in your arms
and I watch the folds
of you and my certainty
is alarmed. I’m conquered;
Judea is my legs, Yisrael is
my arms.
It defies logic so
Beautifully, this love.
Fall my love and I will
Rake the leaves.
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.
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, 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.
Let it cut deeper
love, until it flows
inside the blood
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.
Goodnight, my love
sleep here beside me
my lifelong man. My
champion who hurls against
cobblestones the fears I reserve
for he, whose shoulders arch
city streets and deeper still
on concourses of sheets. I wonder
which of his ribs made me. Dust
settles in the sky as we name
fleeting things we have seen.
Light will dim eventually my
compass, glass and archer and
I will streak west contentedly.
Fleeter be they than dappled
dreams, and every word for
Marion is such and every day;
when I was lean and long
and words scraped against
the city skies of pages one
foot high, I raced in swimming
meets; the whistle blew and
I churned, arms winding like second
hands but really my joy propelled
me down the aisle as I thought
that time was not like her who I
would immortalize like air.
Dear readers,
While it is still September, supermarkets already have their Halloween sections out and my candies look like eyeballs. THEREFORE Halloween contests are upon us and it is time for you to make us cry tears of terror. Send us something haunting, grotesque, pumpkin themed, etc. and you could win a book in the genre of your choosing as well as a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card. The top contenders will all be published on our site. Only one gets the coveted book and gift card.
Acceptable forms of writing for this contest are the same as our regular submission guidelines which are here: http://thefuriousgazelle.com/faq/ . The only rule is that this is a Halloween contest so your piece(s) should reflect that in whatever way you deem Halloween-ish.
That’s right piece(s)! We will take up to five submissions from each contestant. Please send your submissions with Halloween Contest Submission in the subject line of your email. The Deadline is Friday October 24, 2014.
BOO!
-The Furious Gazelle Editors
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