Poetry by Frank Cavano


Upside Down Cake


Reality is illusion, illusion reality.
Space is pregnant with all that is
While matter beguiles, separates
And gives birth to ghosts, ghosts.
The abstract is Loves ever flowing
Fountain; the concrete but endless
Monuments to “special” nothings.
Time is but the measurer of change
And change is testimony to Beings’
Absence. Being alone is permanent.


The artist paints without eyes this
Elusive upside down cake of Life
And the composer samples its echo.
Then, at last, all have come to dine.
                                                                       

Sword Dancing

dancing in the dark

swords at the ready

dancing

because

they invented music

(on which

they cannot agree).

waltz

tango

dirge

i’ll lead and you

follow

no, i will lead!

swords at the ready.

dancing in the dark

sorry i stepped on

your toes.

not really

not really sorry

(better your toes

than your throat).

waltz

tango

dirge

i’ll lead and you

follow!

no, i’ll lead-----

swords at the ready.

swords at the ready

why can’t you do what

i want-

be what

i want you to be?

i invented dancing

and you!

dirge

dirge

dirge

no, i invented the two

of us

crazy

crazy

me---

(to dance against Me).

Poetry by Robert Laughlin


The Retailer’s Use for the Failed Big Box

Now let me think…
a roller skating rink?
Or tell a local moviemaker, come and get
your private motion-picture set.
Or send out flyers:
here’s a meeting place for laid-off employees, now Occupiers.
I’d better make my mind up fast;
my company’s monopoly on empty boxes sure won’t last.


The Prize That Matters Less

The final day of Dionysia:
The tragedies have now been judged,
And all of Athens showers praise
Upon the ivy-covered head of Philocles.
Applauding more politely than the rest
Is Sophocles,
Whose Oedipus the King did not provide delight.
He dutifully smiles while brushing off a hyacinth
Intended for the garland at the winner’s feet.
A fanfare, played by flutes and blaring horns
And doubled down by choristers, attends the irony.
The losing dramatist can never know
His thoughts and feelings of the moment will recur
Within a man named Welles
In far-off AD Nineteen Forty-Two.

Chelsea Kitchen 3:21 a.m.
by A.G. Synclair

I was quite sure that a teacup
                     pulled from the cupboard
in your Chelsea kitchen

was contemplating suicide
                                      by jumping from the table
to the filthy floor below

it, looking only slightly more alone
          than you
and the used bag of Chinese Tea

both of you
                               lifeless

             limp

                                      hot

and bleeding steam.

Poetry by Bryan Murphy


Invicta

The cold digs deeper into our bones,
wakes us to the sight of Eiffel’s iron filigree
splayed below us as our long train rattles
over a poverty-coloured city’s rancid river.

We come to love Oporto’s ingrained aroma
of roasting coffee doused in gent’s hair spray,
its coffee houses packed with men at talk
who leave respectful silent space

around the staring eyes of war vets,
the light of their youth turned off,
cigarettes receding in their fingers,
the killing fields of Africa

heavy in their hearts.
Sent to die, they’ve made it back.
We leave, they stop the rot,
exorcise the demon with their tanks.

They’re brickies now, those lads,
merchants, teachers, voters for Europe,
whose warm trains roll cargo in from far away.
They’ll give up smoking soon.

Oporto Panorama

of self and city re-connected in these better times.
Down by the waterfront, crisis-clouded crowds
vacuum joy from each split second
of collective forgetting.

 In Praça da República, po-faced façades
hide housewrecks abandoned to the birds,
the barracks themselves quail before a statue
of a general shot dead by secret police.

Everywhere, art detonates on city walls
(no longer a capital offence)
or gilds the past in galleries
converted from halls which framed
struggles to survive that came to a halt.

It’s all still there, but can I see it?

I tread with care among criss-crossing tram tracks
to show off exactly where flailing police truncheons
feathered my stroller’s back one fine May morning
in front of the troublesome Uni.

Blaring and spitting have also passed from fashion;
I am by no means the tallest on the out-of-town train;
urban poverty has evolved into the beauty of decadence,
peppered with chaos, like a more southerly port.

Sunday’s scirocco redistributes ungathered rubbish
strewn by commerce now that industry has fled.
It is hard to breathe on Eiffel’s bridge high over the river,
to inhale the exhilaration

When Fall Turns To Spring
by Benjamin Kensey

     Michael Kitson’s day, which had begun with his death, was about to get worse. As he lay on the grass, he was already running through the chain of events and the more stupid of the decisions he’d made that led him to fall off his third-floor window ledge. Had he survived?
   
     “Quite a shock to the system, isn’t it?” came a deep voice from above him. He turned over and peered up into the brightness where a tall figure stood, offering him a helping hand. Getting to his feet, he looked around. There was no open third-floor window above him. In fact, Avery House and its five floors of dour apartments had gone. The London suburb that had dashed every one of his impractical dreams back had disappeared too. Everything had gone.
   
     “Let me get straight to the basics, Michael,” the tall figure said, dressed in what those on a more Earthly plane might describe as a posh bathrobe. “In our line of work, time is of the essence and must not be frittered away. My name is Ruben and as you may have already surmised, you have died.”
   
     Michael’s eyes had briefly swept the bare horizon like the beam of a lighthouse but turned now to Ruben. Michael’s face wore the startled look of someone recently slapped. He swallowed hard. “Died? I fell from the ledge, didn’t I?”
   
     “You did. The landing was spectacular, but only for the two fortunate witnesses, certainly not for your poor spine or your neighbor’s car.”
   
     “So this is heaven? I behaved horrendously throughout. Have you people no standards?”
   
     “We certainly do, but this is not heaven. We’re not here to judge today. You’re in what we call the Mid Between. The name was bestowed by one of my less able predecessors and was never meant to stick, but has displayed uncommon tenacity and survives to this day. All my suggestions for new names have fallen upon deaf ears.”
   
     “I don’t understand.” Michael said.
   
     “You are between lives. Your previous life is over thanks to your tumble. As it was not actually suicide, but merely gross stupidity, you move onto your next life. My role today is facilitator.”
   
     “Am I dreaming?”
   
     “No, you aren’t, Michael.”
   
     “So my last supper was burnt toast and marmite? I’ve died and there’s a fresh leg of lamb in the fridge.”
   
     “I’m sure the living will continue to need food,” said Ruben.
   
     “Do you have a particular life in mind for me, Ruben?”
   
     “Your mother is already in labor. You are about to be reborn, Michael. Rejoice!”
   
     “I’m not sure I will. I don’t want to be born again. Send me upstairs and let’s be done with it. Do I get that choice?”
   
     “Technically, yes, you have a choice, but not in practical terms. You can choose to stay here. Trust me, you do not want to stay in the Mid Between, Michael. Very few choose that path. There are some here, maybe a hundred or so of the more troubled souls,” Ruben said, now turning his own attention to the empty infinite miles that surrounded them, “but eternity is a long time and there is little to do. Come.”
   
     “I need time to think. This has all happened very fast.”
   
     “It’s best we get this over as quickly as possible, lest your mother suffer too much. Dithering and delay in the Mid Between will result in a long, painful labour. You understand the need for haste?”
   
     “Of course. So what can you tell me about this baby, the life it will have?”
   
     Ruben led Michael to an old stone bridge that lay nearby. There was no river or stream flowing underneath, just a continuation of the grass that flowed immense and blemish-free on all sides.
   
     “The life you lead will be full of opportunity for happiness and betterment.”
   
     “That sounds like a politician’s answer,” Michael said.
   
     “We cannot and do not predict the future, Michael, but we work with tendencies, leanings and disposition. Decide and you will move on in the chain of life. A full and varied existence awaits you. All you need do is jump from this bridge and the rest will be taken care of. You’ve already shown a remarkable aptitude for falling from heights today.”
   
     Ruben smiled mischievously at Michael, the white of the sky showing itself in the sheen on his cheeks.
   
     “Ruben, I don’t think I’m ready for another go on the merry-go-round, not as a person anyway. Make me a cat in England where I can grow fat, lie on the carpet and toast myself in the sunbeams by the bookshelf.”
   
     Ruben shook his head. “Only the ignorant perpetuate the myth of coming back as an animal.”
   
     Michael leant on the low wall of the bridge, peering down into an imaginary stream, recalling the happy days of Pooh sticks he’d enjoyed with his brother years before the viciousness of life had taken over.
   
     “Why were you surprised when you thought you were in heaven, Michael? You said you’d behaved horrendously.”
   
     “I did, I had. I was always for myself, a selfish prick. I knew that and was unashamed about it. ‘You’re on this earth for yourself,’ I used to say. I assume you know what put me on that ledge today?”
   
     “Yes. You climbed up there to scare your wife, in short, to win an argument and now she’s a widow.”
   
     Michael looked down to see the shoes that had let him down so badly, only to find himself bare footed.
   
     “My brother died when I was fifteen and I made it all about me, got into a lot of bother with the school, the police, everyone. It was downhill from there. I don’t want to go back and have another life of struggle, Ruben. Are you not going to tell me anything about the life I will, could have?”
   
     “In a maternity ward of questionable hygiene standards, a mother sweats and strains to push new life into the world. Her six daughters wait in a home that’s little more than a shack with their father for the brother and son they’ve prayed for.”
   
     “Ruben,” Michael said, staring out at the green sea, gentle waves moving across it as a breeze tickled the longer blades of grass to movement. “It seems that I am being thrown into a difficult life in a tough environment. Is this for some failure in my last life? Do I have lessons to learn that I have so far failed to take on board?”
   
     “There are always lessons to learn and your four previous lives have indeed been rich in that respect. Money and location are no guarantors of contentment, Michael,” Ruben replied. “I think you would be the first to confirm that. You will start your next great quest with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. You will have the faculties to see, hear and taste the wonders of the world, a world you can bend to your dreams should that be the path you choose. In short, Michael, you are being given a perfectly crafted life to do with as you want. This is no punishment for past errors. On the contrary, you are being given the gift of opportunity, to make small amends. There will be wide-reaching consequences if you don’t continue on, Michael.”
   
     “Is that a threat?” Michael asked.
   
     “Some who are involved in this do not have the chance to spend eternity here in the Mid Between. You should know what will happen to the baby if you choose to stay here.”
   
     “Will someone else go in my stead?”
   
     “The baby will be stillborn.”
   
     Michael sat on the low wall of the bridge and thought about his brother, of having that warm glow taken from his life at such a young age, the derailing stones it had put onto the tracks of his life, the lasting damage it had done him.
   
     “Keep me away from those slippery soles, Ruben,” he called over his shoulder as he dropped.

Stepping Out
by Alex Watson


     The other day I reached out and tore a hole in the fabric of the universe. It wasn’t that hard, really. Just stuck out my arm, took ahold of the aether, and pulled.

     Myra’d been taking about doing something like that for weeks. At first I figured it was just the long, slow hours at the desk that were wearing on her. What was I supposed to think when she began rambling about impossibilities?

     ‘‘No matter what you ultimately believe, the world is simply an ordered structure of numbers, tying into one another with perfect certainty," she once said, "But some numbers just don’t fit. Where would you have to bring a GPS unit to arrive at 1 ÷ 0?’’

     ‘‘It’s academic,’’ I said. ‘‘You could never do it.’’

     ‘‘But what if you could?’’

     She’d gone on like that for several days, eventually declaring that existence was '"a semi-permeable membrane,’’ one which was ‘‘paper-thin and full of bald spots.’’

     ‘‘So what, exactly, does that mean?’’ I said.

     ‘‘It means that, if you walk down the right street at the right time, you could wind up anywhere. You could turn down Lancaster Street and find yourself in the Pleiades.’’

     I thought she was crazy.

     Then I took a weekend off, visited the family cabin up north. Alone, of course, but with a lot on my mind. I’d seen some movies lately, read some books, watched some movies, all of which had--in a silly, romantic way--put me in a very open frame of mind.

     I walked along the lakeshore as the day was waning, looking down at the sand and ruminating on fragments of thoughts and images. I saw a lonely man cast into the cosmos, or maybe it was a girl having a heart-to heart with herself in the center of a planetary nebula. Silly things, I know, but for some reason it felt profound, and I felt very small.

     Myra was there too, all her mumbo-jumbo about semi-permeability and impossible wanderings. Maybe whatever insanity she had was catching; I thought for a second that I could perceive a galaxy of things unseen in the shadows and pebbles and rough grasses of the shore.
Then I looked up.

     The sand no longer belonged to a beach, but rather a vast scrub desert--the sort of thing that had no business being within a thousand miles of the cabin. A canyon opened up to my left, as broad and deep as the one in Arizona, while something vast--many vast somethings--loomed in the distance. I couldn’t put words to what they were, nor could I describe the color of the sky. There were two moons there, though, and a veritable ocean of stars.

     I should have been afraid, then, but I wasn’t. I remembered what Myra had been saying, all the things I’d been thinking about, and it seemed less like a waking dream or a psychotic break than a grand adventure. Something to be seen, something to be experienced, something to be drunk in with wild gasps for fear it would vanish. I wandered among that landscape for days, weeks.

     I woke up in my own bed.

     ‘‘Why have you been saying all that stuff?’’ I asked Myra. ‘‘What were you getting at?’’

     ‘‘I wasn’t getting at anything. Sometimes stuff like that just flows up out of people, and we’re generally too good at holding it in and smothering it. I just decided to let it go.’’

     ‘‘I think…I think you might be right,’’ I said. ‘‘I also think I might be going crazy.’’

     ‘‘What if you’re not?’’ she asked.

     That night, I resolved to see for myself. Fortified on the flights of fancy I’d seen during the day, I felt like a book, open and ready. Not to be read, but destined for something entirely unexpected. To be bronzed, maybe--a book made statue. Or perhaps to have flowers pressed between the pages--my pages--each leaving a mark upon and changing the other.

     It was all easy enough. Reach up, grab, pull down. The tearing sounded much as you’d expect it to.
On the other side?

     Stars. The corner of Leighton and Burrick, downtown. A dusty old gas station with a sign in Arabic. A city growing out of a vast, purple forest canopy. All at once, in a rush like a breaking wave.

     So I stepped out--just for a moment. There’s something to be said for Myra’s paper-thin membrane, wrapping the everyday into a neat brown package. There’s something to be said for seeing only what you can perceive and nothing more.

     But for now, I was content to skate among planetary rings in the arm of a distant spiral galaxy, to pirouette on a molten surface all but consumed in a solar corona, to break upon far-distant shores thrilling with every undulation.

     I was stepping out. I’d be back--but I wouldn’t ever be the same. Myra would be proud, wherever she was.

The Harlem River Claim
by Rafael Coira

     An icy chill swept across the Harlem River, climbed the frosted banks and rattled the moonlit autumn trees. From a nearby perch an owl hooted and General Washington quivered.

     The British ferries sat moored along the far banks under the watchful eye of a Hessian sentry. Washington waited for his men to sneak up on the guard and take him out so that he could advance across the river and eliminate the British transports under the cover of night. It was their last good hope.

     “Sentry down,” reported the watchmen.

     General Washington took the spyglass and raised it to his eye. Across the Harlem, on a steep ridge, the three rebel soldiers stood over the body of the Hessian sentry waving their arms, the signal that the ridge was clear.

     “Advance,” Washington called and the company marched at once.

     They treaded lightly on the frozen ground closing on the ferry line until a continental soldier ran out from the trees in front of them, waving his arms frantically.

     “Go back,” he yelled. Then a single pistol shot rang through the night and the soldier’s body dropped before them.

     “Take cover,” Washington ordered and the men dispersed into the forest. “Where did it come from?” he asked the captain beside him.

     “I don’t know sir.”

     “Take your troop to the south-”

     “Sir…”

      “And report-”

      “Sir…”

      “What is it?”

      “That’s Strom Marshall, sir.”

      “What of it?”

      “He’s the messenger I sent to Forte Lee.”

      Washington’s face went white. “Good God. They’ve got our plans.”

     “Should we retreat Commander?”

     “Are you sure it’s him?”

     The captain faltered.

     “Are you sure?” Washington pressed.

     “No sir, I can’t be sure from this distance.”

     “Advance,” Washington ordered and the men crept out of the forest with their muskets leveled.

     They moved en masse into the clearing on the edge of the river, every man looking for the shooter in their midst.

     But General Washington’s attention was drawn to where he feared the British would be. Across the river, on a high ridge, beneath the silver moonlight the enemy formed like a ghostly horde numbering in the thousands.

     He turned back toward the line of withdrawal where he saw the rest of the enemy soldiers, one hundred men across, several rows deep, blocking their retreat and stretching to outflank them on all sides. Surrounded.
“Surrender or death,” an enemy voice urged and Washington knew it was William Howe, commander of the British forces.

     Fight, the captain whispered in Washington’s ear and the spirit of the young soldier filled him with foolish pride.

     “Death,” he called.

     “So be it,” Howe responded and before Washington could form his company the battle was upon him.
   
     “Ready…Aim….”

     A brilliant light flashed overhead and illuminated the battlefield as bright as day. The men on both sides dropped their weapons and looked to sky.

     A flying silver vessel descended rapidly upon them and the men began to run in every direction. Washington froze.

     The ship came down from the sky as if lowered on a string and the closer it came the larger it appeared until finally it landed silently in the clearing between the two armies.

     To Washington it appeared as a warship, gunmetal cast, with portholes lining its sides. A light at its bow illuminated the ground where a ramp dropped open like a medieval drawbridge and from its mouth emerged a tall thin figure draped in brilliantly sparkling golden robes that seemed to move and sway as if with their own volition.

     The figure moved ten paces from the vessel, turning its head slowly from side to side.

      Washington shuddered at the inhuman motion of the creature.

     Then in the middle of the battlefield, in sight of both armies, the figure pulled from its robes an amber flag and planted it into the ground.

     “…Fire.”

Poetry by Roger Singer


Thirst

The ocean waved its many faces at me;
blue eyes and the gold skin of foamy waters
roll like snakes fleeing fire.
The water touches me with redemption,
easing my engine of thoughts.

The ghost of rising mists slip the
bounds of earth
and then,
ease onto fluid green sheets of silence.

My hands bathe in liquid refreshment.
Watery jewels reflect onto my face
like carpets of setting sun.
The thirst of my eyes drink in the vision,
completing my journey.

Moving On

I’m a shadow between your fingers;
water slips the ankles
of those waiting for me.

A blind moon hides me under
clouds without shape.
Corners smile with welcome
as I settle my feet of travel.

Songs wave at my passing,
singing an opening and then
searching for an end.

Poetry by Jason Visconti


What The Train Conductor Knows

 The train conductor knows it's impossible
to call his whole route.
He's desperate with trying, he enumerates
the switches and tunnels, processes
the waterholes and drains
wet with the grime of dark puddles
in the drone of his naming.

Maybe he knows too much--
you are late with his scenes.
There is track you'll never get to,
a crossing sign that could stop a heart.
As he pulls in take solace that you have a bed
where he won't stop-- unless his eyes grow red.

Dangerous Things

 What would happen if the appliances
leaped off their shelves?
Or if that worn funnel of wastepaper
twisted into a tide?
It's hard to think of anything so absurd
as a ball point pen
casting ink clouds on a blank page
or a door slamming shut
on an honest question
but what if that lawn mower
opened up its ugly jaws?
What if that coffee table
picked up its pen
and wrote on its own?
What would we do? Who would we see?
And what if that light switch
that turns on the power to all the world
flickered and died
whom or what should light the most difficult
of our dreams? What if everything from that mantle
at once? Would we be doomed to pick up
after each other's lives?
And that chair, that chair where
we sit and are allowed to imagine
the very place where we exist
is it coasting on the brim of some regret?
Do our beds trot away with our sleep?
And that clock, that harmless timeless clock
that clock that runs on wishes and dreams
is it finally ready to fall and stop our own heartbeat?

Poetry William Wright Harris


Whiskey

is Irish for
Water
and
should be
treated such:

sacred

And
deadly.

the state lottery office

swells with human
cattle pushing them
selves through the
doors, their heads
disappearing into
a dark mass of
conformity        van
gogh      i know you
felt as          a  l  one
as i do in this life