New Writer's Showcase at Poet's Ink

Poet's Ink Review

February 2010

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Old Time Religion

Thunder announces its presence
in a booming voice, then its friend,
the rain, greens everything,
but moves all the discarded plastics
a little further downhill.

The greasy rainbows of the street
leak, bend like snakes, move
through subterranean tunnels
in an oily search for home.

How this dissolves the happy veneer
I placed on my face for our outing,
our walk to where the piñon and cedar
give way to the spruce, the pines.

The thunder shakes us once again,
knocks laughter out of our bellies
as we stand in the dry of the porch,
feel the shocking bellow of a beast
as big as an old god.

Kenneth P. Gurney

Kenneth lives in Albuquerque, NM. His work appears mostly on the web, as he spends SASE and reading fee monies on flowers for his lover. To learn more about Kenneth, visit http://www.kpgurney.me/Poet/Welcome.html.

Butterfly in the Wind-Shield

And if wings needed distance,
the dead thing reaches out
from beyond my wind-shield blade,
flight first- its spoor, so tidy,

so smooth, as if blown up by
a baby breath- and now, taking
the mechanical route but adding
something to it with an orange wish,

a better color than a cloud- engine
putters and the earth below it too,
then there’s the simple mining in my head,
the mechanics of all things burning oil,

and the buildings with their chest-
puffing lights and the click, the clatter
of things and everywhere feelings so
heavy, so tired, they fall out of

themselves, drop like paper-weights,
and then there’s this blurred vision,
an artist’s brush struggling to keep
up with these deeper hues, this

flightier fancy and suddenly some rain,
sky breaking apart at the nonsense of it,
and then, clapping on that wiping speed,
the beast set free at last, spun out into

the grayness, hoisted by wet wind
well beyond the dark miles
that disappear beneath my wheels,
to cheer a spot where nothing is.

John Grey

John has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, The Pinch, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal, with work upcoming in Alimentum and Big Muddy.

Survival

The birds come each morning
and I feed them,
blue jays, doves, finches,
seducible to tameness
in mankind's old pattern
of conquering nature
that I always resist.
I do not pet, coax, comfort,
but often wonder
if I am weakening them
by providing sustenance.
As we further destroy
the frail environment
with concrete, toxins,
other corrosives,
always encroaching
on diminishing habitat,
I often wonder
if I am violating
the harsh laws of survival
by providing sustenance.

Gary Beck

Gary’s poetry and fiction has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. His chapbook, Remembrance, was published by Origami Press; another chapbook, The Conquest of Somalia, was published by Cervena Barva Press. A collection of his poetry, Days of Destruction, is being published by Skive Magazine Publishing. His plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced Off-Broadway.

In Brief

Music’s visual equivalents ring
on the top of a puddle circling
the spot of a drop.

TWIXT

TWIXT is the mononym-onym of Peter Specker; he has had poetry published in MARGIE, The Indiana Review, Amelia, California State Quarterly, RE:AL, and others. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

POND ASSOCIATION:
NEW HAMPSHIRE 2006

The lake is flat now,
Olive brown, under a leaden sky.
Earlier a June storm swept up the pond,
Roiling, sculpting the water,
Grey and black, crackles of silver.
My slow swimmer’s strokes break the surface,
Heavy, lubricious, scent of algae.
But there are others:
Smallmouth bass lunging upward,
A loon beginning his long dive into shared waters.

Tonight the Pond Association meets,
The children and grandchildren of my parents’ friends,
Gathering in a ritual of memory.
Lemonade is served, reports heard:
Milfoil thwarted, beavers held at bay.
Walking back to the cottage
In the dim nine o’clock light of the summer solstice,
Echoes of the faint laughter of neighbors,
Of woodpeckers and of loons,
Fellow sojourners in the land.

Robert Demaree

This poem appeared in Avocet, Fall 2008.

GRACKLES

Persuaded by a bogus theology,
Believing that God inhabits all things,
We have at length given in to the grackles.
No longer do I tap at the window
Lest they devour seed meant for the goldfinches,
Who can take care of themselves.
The grackles cast an oily, blue-black glance:
You put up bird feeders? We’re birds! Where’s the problem?
Sadly, I no longer argue.
With the red squirrels, though, it’s a different matter.

Robert Demaree

This poem appeared in Bolts of Silk, March 2009.

Robert Demaree is the author of four collections of poems, including Fathers and Teachers, April 2007, and Mileposts, October 2009, both published by Beech River Books. The winner of the 2007 Conway, N.H., Library Poetry Award, he is a retired school administrator with ties to North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where he lives five months of the year. He has had over 400 poems published or accepted by 100 periodicals. For further information see http://www.demareepoetry.blogspot.com.

The Scheme of Work

there she was—rooted in my garden
eating dinosaur ferns no
amount of wooing would
convince her to partake of tender
noxious non-native ivy
dancing graze-glare-munch
shoo shoo shoo
like step-ball-change
offering the remains of local blueberries
to please not eat my fern
appreciated but not reciprocated
poor fern down to nubs before
she trudges off into the firs
for breakfast she returns with twins
looks wistfully at the desiccated plants
heads towards newly planted iris bulbs

Laura LeHew

Laura is an award winning poet. Her work appears in a myriad of national and international journals and anthologies. She earned a MFA in writing from the California College of Arts, a residency from Soapstone, interned for CALYX, and was nominated for a Pushcart. She edits Uttered Chaos.