Poet's Ink Review

March 2008

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When Mr. Ochoa Talked To Me

Yellow eye boogers oozing
from the corner of his fake left eye.
I tried not to look at it,
so I concentrated on Mary
tattooed on his chunk of forearm.
Baby Jesus not in her arms.
Just her and her oyster-shell aura.

Masashi Musha

Masashi lives in California. Some of Masashi’s poems will soon be appearing in Direction Literary Magazine.

The Vegetable Slicer

Caught up short late one December,
I bought a vegetable slicer,
Garishly hawked at a shopping mall in Arlington :
You want julienne strips? Watch this!
I found out later she had cried on Christmas morning.
Duty required packing it up when we sold that house,
But not the next one.
This was forty years ago.
Regretted presents pile up at the curbside;
Love persists, moves on.

Robert H. Demaree, Jr.

Robert retired in 2001 after 42 years as a school teacher and administrator. His poems have been published in a number of literary journals, including Cold Mountain Review, Millers Pond, Red River Review, and Red Wheelbarrow. His first book-length collection of poems, Fathers and Teachers, was published by Beech River Books in April 2007.

Our Conversation About Death

Death is blackbird in black forest.
There's always wings to my oblivion,
and bones lighter than air.

Death is the reverberation
of people inside legends,
of veiled face, night lily,
and readings from the book of blur.

Death is the soft footsteps
inside the solid ones,
the gentle harp-string touch
of the night inside night.

It can't be harsh
as your grim-reaper jokes,
as bloody as his scythe.

For one who loves,
it should be the logical extension.
For one who hates,
a good excuse to stop.

John Grey

John has been published recently in Agni, Worcester Review, South Carolina Review, and The Pedestal. His latest book is What Else Is There from Main Street Rag.

Residue

Yesterday
there was too much room in the world.
I lost my self in it, like a wish
whispered. Eyes, breath, the willow
weeping, and always the
damage – words swallowed whole,
tremors at fault lines; the sharp mean
memory of sun, leaves gone. Still,
occasionally, I find her ballet tights in the
laundry. I fold them slowly,
put them on the stair up to her room.
On the phone she sounds quite
breathless: a paper’s due; the Kirov’s
coming to New York next month.
She speaks so fast I only listen to the
speed.

It’s obvious now:
time rushing through and standing still;
the sky, aubergine. None of it planned,
not the wind circling like hawks, not the
blight. It’s dark at four, her shins are
tired; I wonder is it late enough to
pour a glass of wine. The house fills up
with too much space, each cat now has a
room to call her own. I used to love my
bedroom door, but now I leave it open.

Between breaths, the only lasting solace the
table, the lamp, the thick round
custard
of light.

Kim Triedman

Physical memory

This must have been the way I
waited in the womb: knees up, arms
crossed at the wrists, right hand
balled within the socket of the left.
It’s where my body goes when I

forget to pay attention. For
instance: the birdfeeder off the
breakfast room was filled with suet,
that I remember (with my toes
pointing inward, left foot fitted
neatly to the ankle of my right),
and the hornets in the tool shed,
singing of death. Only

once did I stop for gas, in all
those hours and hours, but by the
time we made it home it was
too late; the thing was done. In
retrospect, our voices were like
shards of glass -- murderous,
mesmerizing-- my arms were pleated
tightly to my chest like the
wings of a bat.

Kim Triedman

Kim’s poetry has been published in The Aurorean/Unrorean and she was a finalist for the 2007 Philbrick Poetry Award.

Coat

He asked
If I would wear mink
as hypothesis.
Yet I took it
to heart
as if
this blood sacrifice
would put an end
to my sorrow

Abel's offering accepted
turned into
a dream that popped

I long for
what has been
against my principles.
I get older
Lose grace
Longing grows
Time grows short

I long to put on
This Technicolor dream coat
Be young again
Become less cold this winter

It a powerful thing
To offer a woman
A mink coat
Even in theory

I long to wear it
Against my skin
Would accept it in a heartbeat
If he could come with it and a ring

Even as I care for
The warm creatures
Of the field
Long to feel their living pulse
Beneath my hands
I care for him
More than mink

The question caused
Wonder as I puzzled
This desire
This conversation evolved into
More than academic curiosity

To discover how much cruelty
I hold in my heart
How much love

Diane Klammer

Diane’s work has appeared in a number of publications, including The San Fernando Poetry Journal, Poet’s Art, Palos Verdes Review, and Poetic Hours. While working as a biology teacher and a mental health counselor, she was fortunate to teach and publish the poetry of the mentally ill and children. She currently sings for the elderly and teaches as a naturalist for Boulder County Open Space.

She talks to bread
the way you would set a clock
a voice to go off inside, petwords
for waterfall, huge rocks
the mist and morning.

Forget soup --just crust, days old
and words without getting wet
--the crumbs not quite the soft light
though her shadow is empty

almost evening and her hold is contagious
spreads till you feel a darkness
under you, filled with stars
and your shadow made invisible

--with two fingers, grabs at
bread, at the cold mouth
that mourns, that drifts

--how long can this woman cling
before a spoon, a simple cup
is possible and the cry
that isn't the sea
isn't something torn
or you almost loved me.

Simon Perchik

All night and the rain that's lost
falling to its death
--what the sun comes upon
and the dark puddles where the dead

--without shoes you walk through
excite the water rising to your lips
the way footsteps, still new
will talk about far away
--a few words that never dry
that never get used to your angel mouth
breaking open on kisses.

And then? Look, kid
you can stomp all you want
but we need birds :fruits
dropping off the sun
and singing out loud in their sleep

--when you stop that make-believe limp
you will smell from mud
almost feathers and birdsong, in time
walking away will be easier.

Simon Perchik

Her Sonnet

It isn’t the words that she inspires,
But a shared life that brings me to my knees.
She has made an honest man of this liar
And crumbled all the walls with no great ease.
That afghan made her look like poetry:
Fall colors, the zig zag against her leg.
How has she found this love inside of me.
It was supposed to be locked up instead.
She asks why she never moves me to words,
Next to fire its hard to see a spark.
I pay attention to dangerous curves.
Now I am starting it over in the dark.
I am not a person, I am an event.
A force of nature that has all been spent.

James Hall

James is a student at the University of Indiana.

Pallbearer

-“Grandpa is going to be buried in his overalls. I thought you’d like to know that.”

I go out the door, towards the hayfield, and walk
along the barbed-wire fence, on down the wooded hill.
I walk long enough to realize even the cows
don’t come out this far, at least not for long,
they’d have to eat this sun burnt wheat instead
of the bales and grain kept up by the house.

My company is the cockleburs clinging to my pant leg,
and they will most likely make it back home with me.
Out here, grasping the fence, I don’t miss anything.
There’s something in nature’s quiet that rings in your ears
and only gets louder as the sun gets lower.

I come to a creek, one small enough you can see
the bottom line of wire, barely above the water
going across to the other side. I kneel down close,
leaning forward, one hand holding onto the fence,
and cup enough water to rub over my face.

Back at the house, my father will be loading the car
by now, moving my grandmother as slow as time
across the yard. I raise myself up, gripping
the fence with both hands, eyes squeezed shut,
and try to feel everything around me.

Moving up the hill again, the funeral gets closer
and the sun shines down bright, hot.
I’ve never lifted a casket before.

Lee Busby

Driving to Memphis

I’ve followed this yellow car
for an hour and a half now
through the Arkansas bottoms.
Unable to pass, I’ve relegated myself
to the countryside, a barn with no door,
a field that won’t need cut for another four months,
an irrigation ditch gone dry
and a cotton patch almost barren.
Out here I add adjectives to everything
because you can only see so much
on a road that’s curved, potholed and cracked.
A road that’s no damn good.
I imagine the driver in front of me
can see Graceland, can smell
ribs from Beale Street,
and is smiling with both hands
on the wheel, knowing he
will get there first.

Lee Busby

Lee is a graduate student at Missouri State University, studying under the poets Marcus Cafagna, Michael Burns and Jane Hoogestraat. Lee has previously published poems in the literary journal Moon City Review.

A Light To The Eye

Angels are a light to the eye,
offering clarity of the night,
bringing joy in message and
presence of the morning
through day;
this season again what song,
what peace ---
Mary who says yes to the Lord.

Peter Menkin

Peter is an Oblate in the Episcopal Church. His work has appeared in a number of publications, including Westward Quaterly, Ruah, and The Shepherd.