Poetry Fall 2013 fiction all issues
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Chris Joyner
Wrestlemania III
& other poems
Carey Russell
Visiting Hours
& other poems
Marc Pietrzykowski
Cabinet of Wonders
& other poems
Jonathan Travelstead
Prayer of the K-12
& other poems
Jennifer Lowers Warren
Our Daughter's Skin
& other poems
Jeff Burt
The Mapmaker's Legend
& other poems
Patricia Percival
Giving in to What If
& other poems
Toni Hanner
1960—Lanny
& other poems
Christopher Dulaney
Uncle
& other poems
Suzanne Burns
Window Shopping
& other poems
Katherine Smith
Mountain Lion
& other poems
Peter Kent
Surliness in the Green Mountains
& other poems
William Doreski
Gathering Sea Lavender
& other poems
Huso Liszt
Fresco, The Forlorn Virgin...
& other poems
Clifford Hill
How natural you are
& other poems
R. G. Evans
Dungeoness
& other poems
David Kann
Dead Reckoning
& other poems
Ricky Ray
The Music of As Is
& other poems
Tori Jane Quante
Creatio ex Materia
& other poems
G. L. Morrison
Baba Yaga
& other poems
Joe Freeman
In a Wood
& other poems
George Longenecker
Bear Lake
& other poems
Benjamin Dombroski
South of Paris
& other poems
Ryan Kerr
Pulp
& other poems
Josh Flaccavento
Glen Canyon Dam
& other poems
& other poems
Christine Stroud
Grandmother
& other poems
Abraham Moore
Inadvertent Landscape
& other poems
Chris Haug
Cow with Parasol
& other poems
Mariah Blankenship
Fiberglass Madonna
& other poems
Emily Hyland
The Hit
& other poems
Sam Pittman
Growth Memory
& other poems
Alex Linden
The Blues of In-Between
& other poems
Bobby Lynn Taylor
Lift
& other poems
D. Ellis Phelps
Five Poems
Alia Neaton
Cosmogony I
& other poems
Elisa Albo
Each Day More
& other poems
Noah B. Salamon
Sanctuary
& other poems
Bear Lake
Just three lights shine on the opposite shore.
At ten the waxing moon is only a dim sliver,
the sky still too bright for me to see stars.
White pelicans fly low over the water,
their wings beating slowly, so close
I can hear feathers against air.
The stars brighten and the pelicans
are still flying as I fall asleep.
When I awaken after midnight
the Milky Way lights the sky to the horizon,
from Idaho south to the dry Utah hills.
A plane blinks red and a single
satellite moves east to west.
All the rest is stars.
I lie on the desert shore
watching stars who shone
billions of years ago.
Eons from now somebody
may be watching our star.
By then we’ll probably be gone;
maybe we’ll have blown ourselves away.
It’s hardly important to the Milky Way
whether one star shines—
but perhaps it matters
that twilight comes already at four
that across the lake a porch light comes on
that already the Milky Way is floating into dawn
that already one white pelican flies low over Bear Lake
perhaps it matters—
all the rest is stars.
Samarra
A boy looks up at the gold-domed
mosque in Samarra as he does each morning—
it’s stood a thousand years, it’s reflected
the sun at dawn and dusk, it’s echoed
thousands of morning prayers. He falls
backward in the explosion, his head crushed
beneath a fragment of ancient mortar and gold.
Bricks scream through the air and obliterate
prayers. The blast shakes minarets
which sway and crack in the explosion.
One of his eyes looks left to the Euphrates,
the other to the Tigris, but he doesn’t see
gold leaf that rains down and shimmers in the sun,
doesn’t see dust that rises where the golden dome
had been. Blood trickles from his mouth;
who knows to which river it will flow.
I saw it in the news the next day—
but probably it’s already
been forgotten in the long history
of Babylon and America,
another small war,
not news anymore.
There’s prayer as sirens wail:
Return your artillery and blood
from the Tigris and the Euphrates,
reverse the explosions,
turn back the sunrise.
Return the child’s sight
so he may watch the golden dome of Samarra
come gleaming back in the morning sun.
Completely Full
As we board, the flight attendant announces
that our plane is completely full. I want to ask
how it can be more than full, for isn’t full by
nature complete? We leave Florida completely
full, next to me a mother and her young son.
Two hours later I’m jolted from my nap. The plane
bucks with turbulence, bounces, then brakes hard
as we land on the icy Newark runway. The whole
time the mother holds her son’s hand and leans
close against him. He says only it’s okay Mom.
It is this then, the taking of a child’s hand
that is more than full, more than complete.
He puts his other hand on hers.
We have landed and the plane taxis to the gate.
Salt and Sorrow
A kitchen in a residence in Aleppo, Syria damaged Sunday in fighting.
—Narciso Contresas photo, The New York Times
Walls are blackened, there’s a refrigerator
with rust at its bottom, stickers of yellow
butterflies and blackbirds on its door.
A dish towel hangs on the door handle
and atop sits a vase of purple paper flowers,
On shelves jars of spices still stand upright.
We can’t see what’s upright in the rest
of the home, if its power is on,
or if walls and windows are intact.
Charred ceiling plaster covers the floor,
no mortar shells or shrapnel though;
a jar of beans lies unbroken and a tiny drawer—
maybe for salt, we don’t know, but nobody
can live without salt or sorrow,
no matter where. On a lower shelf rest
three small pairs of sneakers—
we can’t see the children,
their parents or the photographer,
they must all be somewhere.
Outside—but outside is not in the picture—
we can’t hear if there are explosions and artillery fire.
On the wall hang pans, a strainer and measuring spoons.
Why do some things fall and not others?
All the utensils are blackened,
but we can’t tell whether from cooking
or just war. In a dish drainer cups dry;
they’ll need to be washed again
if the family returns—
if they live—their blackened
kitchen sent naked around the world.
Squeaky Fromme Remembers
I’m one of only a few women
who ever fucked Charlie Manson
I’m one of only two women
who tried to kill a president
I wore a red dress
the day I almost shot Ford
(I wish I’d shattered his head)
I loved the world’s most famous killer—
(I wish I’d been the one to stab Sharon Tate)
plunging deeper and deeper
deeper and deeper—oh Charlie
stab me like you did then—
I had him more
than Patricia or any of The Family
the year of my trial
I got more mail than Charlie
I was the only woman
ever to escape from Alderson
(but they caught me)
I’m free now
(parole sucks and I miss the food)
my photo’s in the Ford Presidential Museum—
you can Google me—
I get more hits than Charlie
(sometimes I’d like a hit of acid)
I did more drugs than Betty Ford
you know I was in a Broadway Musical?
Assassins
the actress wore a red dress
I’m more famous than anyone in my family
than anyone in The Family
except Charlie
Charlie, Charlie
I’m free now
I almost assassinated the President, Charlie
I’ll come in my red dress
stab me, make me bleed
George Longenecker
teaches history, poetry, and technical writing in the Department of English, Humanities and Social Sciences at Vermont Technical College. His recent poems have appeared in Memoir, Atlanta Review, and Santa Fe Review. He lives in Middlesex, Vermont, with his wife and poetry muse, Cynthia Martin. When he’s not writing and teaching, he hikes and skis in the Green Mountains.