Poet's Ink Review

September 2008

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Eleventh Hour

Suburbia is as lonesome as the surface of the moon,
As I ride in a one-man race under
A sky so menacing it spills the dry rain of doom.
Night will last as long as God, so black.
I will last as long as the music in the back.

The eleventh jour entices me like a vacant stare.
My mind plays games in the blackness.
The highway goes everywhere, nowhere.
Cars pass with no name.
The dark is as rich as champagne.

Desolation is liquor I drink,
When companionship is a futile as faith,
And I have nothing better to do than think.

Joel Frohlich

Friday Night on the Metro

I am alone.
I am not alone.
The tunnel is the rive Lethe.
The passenger is not a person,
But a body.

Doors closing!
Please stand clear of the doors!
Thank you!

He is alone.
Red beard, paper dermis,
Hair like fungus: pesticide bald spot,
Looking at him
Will make our eyes clot.

Next station:
Farragut West!

I am alone,
But God, I wish I were not.
Couples walk in like pairs of socks.
I say, my right foot was amputated,
by kismet, the doc.

Doors opening,
On your left.

I am not alone.
But God, I wish I were.
This train takes my worth,
Like a coffin with windows,
Or a burial without earth.

More spill in like larva,
Butterfly wings cov’ring their shells.
Identical as barcodes.
Beautiful as hell.
Sickening as hell.

Here they come.

Red dress, blue suit,
Green dress, black suit,
Black heels, white tie,
Silver heels, purple tie.

Chitchat, chitchat.
This that, this that.
Laugh laugh, laugh laugh!
LAUGH LAUGH, LAUGH LAUGH!

Sexy people,
Doing sexy things.
Sexy women,
Wearing sexy bling.

Nameless people,
Doing hollow things.
Nameless women,
Wearing hollow rings.

A book in my hands;
The Tylenol I need.
Above hollow voices,
I can’t hear myself read.

Next station:
McPherson Square!

You think they hear you,
In this midnight pod?
Your voice is as unheard
As the voice of God.

E pluribus Unum
Out of many, one?
E pluribus Unum
Out of many, some.

Joel Frohlich

Joel's short fiction will appear in the April issue of Down in the Dirt. He is an undergraduate majoring in journalism and psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park.

A Shade Of Green

A worm wiggles along the green wall
of grass, slithering in a jealous rage.

Green, combine the lining of yellow,
blue of wild flowers and settle
on level of calmness, to enhance
an Illicit affair.

The worm wiggles in a contest of rage,
puking in solid mistrust, wandering
through green velvet of towering vines
evading the clinging fingers.

Headlong they wander in a forest of
green, carried by the winds gentle

caress, share the moment secrets.
The worms wander in the green valley
of poison ivy suffering unbearable
pain as their world of green, shatters

in a thousand separations.

Theresa Reynolds

Theresa has been writing poetry and short fiction for many years. Her work has been published in Brushfire. She is currently pursuing a BA in English Writing and UNR.

When Third Grade Started

When third grade started at Blessed Sacrament School
One of the girls was missing.
Whispers across the playground
Said that little Mary had died.
In those days almost every Catholic girl
Was named Mary something—except for Peg,
Like Peg was the only girl wearing black Mary Janes
On First Communion Day.
Everyone else wore shiny, white shoes.
True brides of Christ
While she wore black, a sure sign she was a sinner.
Peg had broken off the top of her mother’s
Nail polish and hidden it beneath her socks.
Only a sinner would do that.
But Mary wasn’t a sinner, so why had Mary died and not Peg?

Little Mary with the clean moon face and ebony curls.
Peg had never really talked with her much. Mary sort of scared her,
Her bleached bones forming the letter S
And resting in a wheelchair, dark curls listing to her left.
This alabaster bird so soon to find God’s garden.
Mary was the first dead person Peg knew.
When Peg was in second grade, a fourth grader had walked across the icy
Stone railing of the railroad bridge and fell and died.
But her death didn’t count because Peg didn’t know her.
But Peg knew Mary, and Mary was dead,
And Mary was a kid,
And if kids could die--
No, she wouldn’t think about that.
She would think about riding bikes after school
With her best friend Penny, if Penny were still on the playground.

Patty Barnes

Patty is the author of A WORKBOOK FOR HEALING: Adult Children of Alcoholics. She is also a published poet. Today, she breeds Labradoodles and enjoys Maine's quiet life.

Thoughts at a City Lamppost

Does a memorial teddy bear ever wonder
why he was bought—not to play tea
party or dress up, or be dragged
after a bicycle on the way
to gather worms, or sleep
beneath the covers on cold
winter nights? What does he think,
sitting at his lamppost
with bouquets of flowers and
sputtering candles, when the rain
soaks his soft fur, and cars speed past
with only a glance of acknowledgment?
Does he understand that,
although he will never be able
to hug them, soak their tears
into his fuzzy shoulder, hold them
though the night
so they don’t have to sleep alone,
he does his people a service—keeping
watch for their loved ones, reminding
others of their pain? Does he know
that teddy bears have many purposes,
and this is not the least of them?
Is there a voice
in the cold wind and rain
to whisper in his ear,
this also is noble, this also
is good?

Megan Arkenberg

Megan Arkenberg is a student in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she writes fantasy fiction and short form poetry. Her work has recently appeared in Aoife's Kiss, Byzarium, 3Lights Gallery and Modern English Tanka.

Transitions

I stood at the edge of the cellar hole,
Wondering where they had gone,
And thought of lives
A thousands years ago,
Pressed along those narrow
Red rock ledges in Utah ,
Days of fear:
Then finally one morning
They packed up and left.

By the pond, our kayaks,
One leaning on the other,
Against a white pine,
Old lovers arm in arm.

Robert Demaree

Robert’s collection of poems, Fathers and Teachers, published 2007 by Beech River Books is in a third printing. It is available through Amazon.com, or directly from him; contact rdemaree@metrocast.net.

Paper Whites

I

Mid summer
when you tell me.

My lips move, no sound comes.

You say you won’t
do anything about it.

I begin my own denial.

II

Mid winter…I ask,

“When will you take the tests,
have some answers?"

You put me off.

I sit like a sentry in darkness,
wait to face an unknown enemy.

III

When I was a little girl
I heard rats gnaw
inside my bedroom walls
gnawing, gnawing, gnawing…

In my dreams,
I walk into the long closet,
imagine the door
open at the back
to fleshless living corpses
in a cobwebbed cave.

In other dreams,
the music note
slides down
the sheet music,
sliding, sliding, sliding.

Who will bring me paper whites in winter if you are gone?

IV

As you were growing up,
the notes slid off the pages as well.
You moved to live with your father…
discipline and responsibility
not and issue in his home.

On to California…
lived off the streets,
raided garbage cans.
The notes needed
to stop sliding off the page.

V

You return to my life…
spring bulbs bloom.
Discord becomes harmony…
plan your wedding,
think alike, a surprise.

The baby…the bond grows,
mother to daughter, daughter now mother,
the connection always there.

Neither of us will
repeat the past.
No rats will live
live in bedroom walls.
No more garbage cans…
no more, no more, no more.

VI

You call this morning,
tell me, “I will get a second opinion
because I don’t want you to worry.”

As I hang up the phone
the relief I feel
is like icicles melting from the eaves.

Who will bring me paper whites in winter if you are gone?

Judy Swanson

A retired paralegal, Judy has been writing music lyrics all her life and performed professionally for more than 15 years. She has been attending the “InnerVisions” poetry workshop in Windsor, Connecticut since the fall of 2006. Judy is also an artist who is represented by a gallery in Bloomfield, Connecticut and enjoys writing children’s stories.

Days Pass

Days pass,
Cold is winter,
At night birds hide in trees.
Doves at bird feeder don’t count days.
No cares.

Michael Lee Johnson

Michael is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. He is the author of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom. He has also published two chapbooks of poetry and has been published internationally in many poetry journals. You can visit his website at http://poetryman.mysite.com.

Fire Straits

Cinder-man is dying in the blizzard
Cinder-ella holds his smouldering body
as more forcibly than warmly
as we'd hold a last resort


When the fire is no more
the Feelet Mignon will be inedible
and we edible to each other


On a snow-blanketed world map
he who finds a fiery red igloo
where Greenwich and Equator elope
will find himself in a dilemma
as if between
a new heart for his morbid obesity
and a new life without doughnuts.

André Braga Cabral

André Braga Cabral is a 22-year-old Brazilian who is quite keen on grammar as long as it's in shambles. He kneads his words until they reflect his scatterbrained nature.