“Searching for Virginia Dare”

I look for dopplegangers, sure that I am adopted.
For a while, I scanned milk cartons. Now, I pause
for amber alerts even though I’m too old

for kidnapping. I want to be the long lost child
of DB Cooper or a descendant of Virginia Dare
and her Lumbee husband.

But, I’d never look like his side of the family -
no blue eyes, no fair skin, just brown . . . brown . . .
brown:  the inevitable pigment.

Commute

There’s always a right
you wait to make; that
you won’t remember
taking until you are already
at work except today
there’s movement
to your left where you
are checking traffic – the J
curve edged by a ditch,
a fence, a fenced in
yellow house that seems very
Wizard of Oz tornadoed into
place. The action – a deer -
never in the street but running
around the house’s black fence
to the grey chain link of government
access fencing. The house’s
only neighbor. The deer runs
its dotted hide against the metal
until the unlocked gate
to the greenway lets the doe – you
decide it is a doe – pass. In a movie,
someone would honk behind you
or you’d decide to turn left. You
turn right. That’s the route
you always drive.

PIT-STOP

There’s only one place to
buy gas in this town.

Two churches,
one motel, three bars

and a stop-light
that blinks.

What you might call
a complete town

‘cept there’s noplace
to eat that doesn’t come

wrapped
in cellophane.

Love goes by
fast, too.

Hardly need to stop
‘less it’s night,

the moon
hides its face

and you need
that promise to stay.

SOUTHERN LIVING

The sun down here
is deep, and soul-wide.

Hiding is hard
but everyone tries—

small lies, big tales,
sunscreen, patio screen,
ballcap or parasol,

simply idling
with iced tea once
the light
gets so high

it kicks off socks
on its own.

You have to put down
deep, deep roots
in this soil

where old water
draws back

and memory
and pain are blended
cocoa and cream.

The oaktree knows
what has hung
in these branches,

how peckers sing
of nests and flying,

returning home
to roots,

what cools off
this burning heart.

 MEMORIZING DYLAN THOMAS WHILE DRIVING FOR THE RED CROSS

By Anthony S. Abbott

My first pick up is Robert Reid

who has had three surgeries already

this year and is expecting one more.

“Do not go gentle into that good night.”

“Rage, rage, against. . .” No that is the third

line. “Old age should burn and rage…” No “rave”—

God, I can’t get it. I drop Mr. Reid at the doctor

and tell him someone else will pick him up.

I must find Mrs. Wiley in Huntersville

before nine o’clock. “Wise men, at their end

know dark is right, but….”oh yes, “because

their words had forked no lightning…”

OK, Mrs. Wiley, where are you? I can’t find

the number of your house. It says here on Mapquest

this is where you live. “Rage, rage, against the dying

of the light.” There is no goddam 300 on this corner.

Great. I call the office. They can’t find it either.

I ask at the Farmer’s Market. It might be the old

folks community across the street. Mapquest said

left, this is right. “Wild men, who caught and sang

the sun in flight, and learn too late they grieved it.”

Oh I like that one. Mrs. Wiley, where are you?

There are old folks all over sitting on benches outside.

No one knows her. What is her apartment number?

I don’t know. “Do not go gentle.” No, I will not go

gentle or otherwise. I call the office. They find out

Mrs. Wiley is in 5B. Ok, I go to 5b. No one answers.

I call her on my cell phone. No one answers. “Rage

rage, against the dying of the light.” What if

she’s lying inside, dead?  Now what do I do?

“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight.”

O God, maybe she’s gone gentle into that good night.

I call her doctor, who says she’s sitting in his waiting

room, calm as can be.. Great, and here I am looking

like an idiot. I sit in my car and say the words out loud:

“Old age should burn and rave at close of day.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Iconography
By Scott Owens

What is it about
a red barn
that makes us stop
and notice, as if
because it’s red
it has to be
historical, intentional,
significant, as if
even a new one
qualifies as old,
classic, retro,
timeless, as if
it had nothing
to do with mere
habit, frugality,
available materials,
as if given
the chance even God
would have made them red,
knowing nothing
could look as good,
suggest as much
against green
of grass, blue
of sky, winter’s
white, vacant
trees of autumn?

Who Hasn’t Contemplated Civil Disobedience Stuck Behind
a Tractor Trailer Carrying Chickens to Dobson, NC
By Scott Owens

I mean we’ve all been there, right?
First offended by the stench of a thousand chickens
and their requisite shit, piss, cackle,
doomed pathetic feathers stuffed
between metal slats of a rolling henhouse,
chuffing them off to heaven-sounding Holly Farms
and cursing our luck that even though
every road around Dobson, NC,
is a country road as straight as it is narrow,
every time we try to pass we meet
a car coming the other way.
And so, we sit, stuffed in our own box
too tight to move, legs drawn up, arms bent,
back hunched over the wheel
until we start to feel more than a bit
sympathetic towards the horde
of gallus domesticus perched before us
certainly deserving better treatment
than this, and that’s when our imaginations
begin to run a bit wild and we see ourselves
modern-day Thoreaus refusing our quiet
desperation and thinking for a moment
we might pull up alongside this slaughterhouse
on wheels, use an umbrella to wedge
the accelerator down, climb through the passenger
side window, swing ourselves onto the side
of the truck, sidle around to the back,
fling open the doors and scream
Fly free my fine-feathered friends.

But then, the vision continues
and their luminous white bodies
fall to asphalt one by one
and are crushed beneath the wheels of cars
whose drivers cheered us on
but moments ago, and so
we keep our seats, grip the wheel
of the minivan with two hands,
and try to stay between the lines.

think fast

by chesley oxendine
imagine an early evening

nestled in deep, Southern summer:

twilight sluicing through

the trees in a parade of

red and gold, a hazy cabaret show

in the sweet, sticky air;

imagine you and i curled

into each other on a hammock

guided back and forth by the

touch of a rare breeze.

imagine the july symphony:

cicadas and crickets in concerto,

the sound dancing in the heat.

imagine the sky on fire above us

and the world turning slowly beneath

and imagine, our eyes half closed,

tasting one another’s breath–

imagine that the words “i love you” just

fell over my lips, suddenly,

almost imperceptible.

now tell me how you’d feel.

This self-described redneck/Cajun halfbreed writes like the kind of guy I’d like to drink a beer with. I enjoyed the hell out of these poems. You will too, I’m sure.

Scrambled Sunday Slam-dance
(originally published in Aberrant Journal)

caught a flathead catfish with
a seventies porn-star mustache
he winked at me when I opened his belly

in his guts
I found a used yellow condom
and a diamond engagement ring

took a quick shower to be holy
but laid down in the tub and fell asleep
nearly drowned
was late for redemption

magic promises of the two-headed preacher
rattle my ears
but not my soul
perhaps I am irredeemable in the state

flesh-crazed Sunday canines tear
barbeque-basted corpses
in between witty lies and hatred

oriental chairs
red with gold paisley
they remind me of grandma

she used to chew tobacco and smoke cigarettes
simultaneously
I miss her laughter

dolls speak in scramble Scrabble tiles
smiling feline masque exhales a foreign-tongued
goodnight

forget to let my happy beast outside
my dreams will be littered with worry
and feces on the beige carpet

Desert Debacle

I

My aerodynamic Japanese god breaks down in the middle of the desert. It’s the Texas desert. The lizards all wear 10 ounce cowboy hats. I ask one Banded Gecko geek where the nearest mechanic can be found. He rolls his eyes sideways, flickers his long tongue like a broken party favor, and crawls to the hidden side of his cactus mentality. There’s a billboard with a tattered face that reads, “there’s no place like home.” I laugh, but, as I do, a salty tear slides into my mouth. I take the proper pill, and fiddle with my cell phone: OUT OF SERVICE AREA. I suppose I’m doomed, but I don’t feel very doomed. I don’t feel much of anything.

II

I’ve never seen myself completely naked, but I’m sure I have a lovely skeleton. Especially after a good sandblasting and sun bleaching. When they find me, I’ll look like a well-ironed tuxedo. No sins hidden in the cracks, and no unidentifiable body parts floating in stinky jars. Just my raw wood frame, and my pale blue Mazda splattered onto the khaki sand pallet. In my soon-to-be post mortem opinion: I’m a black comedy masterpiece of epic dimensions. I’ve always wanted to be a knockout punch line.

III

Her name and number are the only ones I’ve stored in my phone. Go ahead, call her. She won’t be surprised. I’m just a faded scar on her waxy old belly, and a rogue tear swimming in her half-shut eye. Just some rotten extremity that fell off of her a few decades ago, and finally landed in this yeehaw litter box of a grave. Nobody will mourn my crooked smile. No flowers will be planted around my marble head. But, the worms will grow fatter, the trees will grow taller and the world will have one less tumor to irradiate on Judgment Day.

IV

Now, before the beasts feast on this turkey carcass, I will sing a coyote hymn, and finish this pint of soul-fire. No need to go to Hell without premedication. No reason to sink in the sand whole. I’ll face Death with a clownish smile and a whisky slur. This way, he won’t expect much from me when the torture begins. That’s how I’ve handled all of my earthly nightmares. Why change now?

New Orleans, Louisiana

sip New Orleans from a cobalt blue bottle:
tastes old and lean like street jazz knees
with pants rolled up to glory,
and time rolled down to a smooth
sexy slither.

fais-do-do on dem red bricks, bebe!
prance with scarred horses,

eat fire on ice with red beans and rice,
and wallow in musky centuries
of saline smiles Chantilly laced
with cayenne pepper.

mes pied sont trempe,
now let’s go swimming

*fais-do-do – a Cajun street dance
* mes pied sont trempe – Cajun for “my feet are wet”
* bebe – baby

R.G. Johnson lives in the Piney Woods of Texas. He hunts & grows his own food, cuts his own hair and writes his own poetry. He is nothing but trouble. Most good folks try to stay away from this social misfit. Rumor has it that he once made love to a rattlesnake. His writing has been published in many magazines and journals (web & print) including Clockwise Cat, Black-Listed Magazine, Paradigm Journal, Literary Burlesque, Red Boot, Poetry Monthly International, Gutter Eloquence, Exercise Bowler, New Wave Vomit, Opium Poetry 2.0, An Electric Tragedy, Aberrant Journal, U Magazine, I,S&T, Burning Houses, Negative Suck, Mad Swirl, Weirdyear, ten pages press (authored the echapbook: come to my room) and Medulla Journal (ezine and print Anthology vol 2). He also authored the chapbook: American Scrap-Dragon, which sold more copies than he ever thought it would.

The descriptions in this are amazing. – John

Daily

by Michelle Reale

Every morning the smell of cabbage.  The cluck of the chickens.  A tidying up of the spider’s silk web.  A gentle parting of the gingham curtains. Her back is slightly bowed, but the routine remains a simple one.  Floss teeth; lay the breakfast table with coffee cup, generic vitamin.  Spherical, non-threatening.  Stay current with yesterday’s news.  Remember the talent in teaching the art of deprivation to the uncomprehending.    She is a gentle teacher and only wants what is best for all concerned. She prescribes the quiet life.  She thinks if she had a suit of, say, denim, there is no telling the heights she might reach, rogue and brave.  But for now, she knows how to take it on the chin. Even an eel must travel far from its home to give birth to something outside of itself. She is content to remove the metal lodged in her throat so that she can sing a lament like a mother’s lullaby.  She knows there is cloth that is yet to be cut.  Straightens her back just long enough to greet that goddamn southern sun like the fickle sonofabitch she has always known it to be.

Michelle Reale is an academic librarian on faculty at Arcadia University in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Gargoyle, Pank, JMWW, Smokelong Quarterly, Staccato, Word Riot, and elimae. Her work was included in Dzanc’s 2011 Best of the Web Anthology.  Her short fiction collection, Natural Habitat, was published by Burning River in 2010. Her short fiction chapbook, Like Lungfish Getting Through the Dry Season (2011), is available from Thunderclap Press.  Her short fiction chapbook If All They Had Were Their Bodies is avaialable from Burning River.She has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Editor’s Note – I don’t like structured poems unless they’re very well done and have a very honest tone to them. And I love this structured poem. That should tell you enough right there.

By Barbara Brooks

DRINKING

to forget.
Maybe Wild Turkey 101 to slow
my crashing mind.
Whiskey on the rocks to erase hours.

Maybe Wild Turkey 101 to slow
the tenacity of alone.
Whiskey on the rocks erases hours,
the burn cinders pictures of together.

The tenacity of alone
is sucked under by the bourbon going down.
And the burn cinders pictures of together.
One is all it would take

to be sucked under by the bourbon going down.
With my crashing mind
one is all it would take
to forget.

Barbara Brooks, author of “The Catbird Sang” chapbook, is a member of Poet Fools .  She has had work accepted in Hospital Drive, Margie Review, Broken Plate, and Third Wednesday, on line at Marco Polo, Earthborne on line, Poetry Quarterly among others.  She is a retired physical therapist and lives in Hillsborough, N.C.

Editor’s Note – I was happy that Neila Mezynski wasn’t offended when I wasn’t sure how to classify this piece. In fact, she told me she often didn’t know what to call it either! I just know I like it.

Crispy Critters

by Neila Mezynski

Stubborn

Rice snapple crack, crispy bacon on griddle flip over tar rubber black. Tree. Green. Once. Fire close to bomb makin plant steer clear, don’t move clear brush close water down house. Aunt Edna resemble char broil thing on spit, stay too long. Well done. Didn’t listen neither.

Showin  off

Move up them hills people do talk say unkind things though they far worse feet to the fire  lovin too much spread yourself out worry aside think. Him. Only.  Can’t eat sleep two words out garbly sound. Silly. Smalls come out them selfless event. Her top plunge to an unspeakable low pants glove tight heels precarious height lipstick thicker ‘n mud show off nook and cranny and then some.  Ingratiating generous way ‘specially tanked up hadn’t learned the no word good. Easier, more invitin’.  Hose ‘er down.

Fire in them synapsis

Read classics pay for evil way not a penny more. Change. Got to. Tearin around visitin clubs booze ensuing denizens of her deep need change self destructive way ask more . Elevatin’. Answer in books lots of ‘em. High meanin’ in her upstairs attic.  Dirt rakers in  basement. Understandin thoughts  upstairs not down below, didn’t have a chance to form on those. Dust. Busy. Take off them high heels slice off skinny skin dress get tennis shoes on girl climb the stairs. Bring your dust rag and shovel for heavy lifting.

Neila Mezynski is author of Glimpses from Scrambler Books, a pamphlet from Greying Ghost Press, an echapbook from Patasola Press and chapbooks from Folded Word Press (2012), Mud Luscious Press and Deadly Chaps Press. Mezynski is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee.

We come back from our hiatus with a couple of poems from way north of our typical demographic – Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman and 3-time Pushcart nominee who published several monographs before emigrating out of China, currently teaches English in Vancouver and has poetry appearing in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cortland Review, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine, RHINO and nearly 400 others in 17 countries.

Scything: A Parallel Poem

I often deplore my sons and nephews never felt
The pleasure of scything
There is no telling
Just how many hearts have been uplifted by this simple exercise

The warm wheat like golden flowers cut down, carpeting
The sunlight-framed fields
A plump land of ears listening to the songs of autumn

How neatly the ripeness lies around
The blade cut all the harvest right into the heart
Ignorant the wise e boys who
Have no idea of this stupid but sensational movement

Southern Country Girl

Just you look at me, rapeflowers
Spreading to the borders of harvest
My palms gloved with calluses
My boots marked with seeds

Just you listen to me, bullfrogs
When they whistle to us aloud
My heart is full of songs
My mouth is full of silences

Just you flirt with my shadow, topsoils
Cast for the land to love
The wheat is ripe with musings
The fields are filled with me