Dotted Line Dotted Line

Poetry Summer 2014    fiction    all issues

whitespacefiller

Anne Rankin-Kotchek
Letter to the World
from a Dying Woman
& other poems

Sara Graybeal
Ghetto City
& other poems

Tee Iseminger
Construction
& other poems

Lisa Beth Fulgham
After They Sold the Cows...
& other poems

Mary Mills
The Practical Knowledge
of Women
& other poems

Monika Cassel
Waldschatten, Muttersprache
& other poems

Michael Fleming
To a Fighter
& other poems

Daniel Stewart
January
& other poems

John Glowney
Cigarettes
& other poems

Hannah Callahan
The Ptarmigan Suite
& other poems

Lee Kisling
How the Music Came
to My Father
& other poems

Jose A. Alcantara
Finding the God Particle
& other poems

David A. Bart
Veteran’s Park
& other poems

Greg Grummer
War Reportage
& other poems

Rande Mack
rat
& other poems

J. K. Kitchen
Anger Kills Himself
& other poems

Jim Pascual Agustin
The Man Who Wished
He Was Lego
& other poems

Jessica M. Lockhart
Scylla of the Alabama
& other poems

James P. Leveque
Three Films of Jean Painlevé
& other poems

Kelsey Charles
Autobiography
& other poems

Therese L. Broderick
Polly
& other poems

Lane Falcon
Touch
& other poems

Ricky Ray
The Bird
& other poems

Phoebe Reeves
Every Petal
& other poems

David Livingstone Fore
Eternity is a very long time...
& other poems

Tim Hawkins
Northern Idyll
& other poems

Abigail F. Taylor
On the Pillow Where You Lie
& other poems

Joey DeSantis
Baby Names
& other poems

Cameron Price
Every Morning
& other poems

David Walker
Sestina for Housesitting
& other poems

Helen R. Peterson
Ablaut
& other poems

Rande Mack

rat

in the old days when the music mattered more

than the mold on his cheese or the vintage of his

swill this man danced circles around his appetite


he was conceived on a oak pew in a choir loft

he was abandoned the day the plague arrived

his mother’s reasons were too raw to consider


he swept her final kiss under a rug in his heart

his dreams turned into tunnels silent and twisted

he circled the moon stamped on a miner’s map


he staked his claim on flood ravaged hearts

he glued mirrors to the toes of his boots and

waded through laundromats looking for love


the people he calls friends are like old shirts

stolen from lines in backyards without fences

he finds the more they fade the better they fit


he enjoys irrigating his neighbors’ contempt

he leaves tracks across pieces of their minds

this man’s shadow might pick his own pocket



rabbit

this man wishes the music wasn’t so jagged

in his dreams the music is always dripping

drops of acoustic candy that nourish his delight


he dips his thumb in the wine and twirls his ‘stash

he pulls on his big ear as he surveys the salad bar

he fingers the sudden hole in his empty pocket


his impeccable shadow ambushes his swagger

he samples a crouton before turning away

over his shoulder the silence grows louder


all the wrong strangers inspect his surprise

he feels like god might be squeezing his aorta

he feels like rubbing noses with the waitress


he is a son of a tenth generation heartbreaker

he has an alphabet’s worth of brothers and sisters

his mother’s carrot cake still makes men tremble


this man slips out the door into the arms of a new moon

he wakes up in a bed of roses but ends up yet again

in a mirror tending the scratches carved by thorns



wolverine

this man is a master at making time

every sundown he matches wits with regret

too long in one place plays hell with his shadow


his foot prints are craters filling with snow

his heart is a canyon with caves on the walls

sooner or later he’ll climb through them all


this man likes his elbow room frigid and vast

he likes his music empty of all but the beat

he unbuckles his belt when he sits down to eat


curiosity is an avalanche that overwhelms him

he gargles gin and broken glass to sharpen his smile

his big jaws chew on the words before he speaks


before he woos a woman with bones in her belly

and silence in her eyes and white painted teeth

another jazz angel on another moonlit street


in his dreams his lovers become mirrors where

he finds his children with names he can’t remember

a turbulent murmur shudders his sleep



snake

this man’s heart is smaller than a chokecherry

mercy never rattles the locks on his thoughts

he grins as he dreams another man’s dreams


he goes days without eating teasing desire

imagining the flavors of his favorite soufflé

he is a connoisseur with dirt under his nails


this man peddles fruit from the family tree

his mother sits nearby in rusty moonlight mirror in

hand plucking silver hairs sticking out her tongue


this man’s past is wrapped around a rhythm

he loves to bob his head and shake his tail

and bend every ear up and down church street


he whispers as he stretches the truth

listen closely to the parable of his want

hear the silence he carves when he moves


this man heats his shanty with shadows

he beats his rugs and sheds his skin before

the dew on his lawn turns to blood and freezes


Rande Mack lives in Manhattan, MT. Sacajawea walked through his backyard long ago. Writing poetry is a way he makes sense of things, a way he prays. Some of his poems have appeared in a few small publications. He won a fellowship for his poetry from the Montana Arts Council.

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