THREAD CORD
by Hoa Nguyen
Slipping over flowers
to the dead place
flame head You make me salt again
I am comfortable with the couch
and a rather perfect Yule tree
with various red birds and glass baubles
plus crocheted “3rd-world”-made lace snowflakes
Do you remember the feral Siamese cat
we named after Charles Bernstein?
Rage dented the silver
trashcan
“fire-crack” or “schrack”
A new sun for the light of the world
back with you again
HAWK CHASED BY BLACK BIRDS
You seek the edge of the bed
and I dream where the sick one
needs a shot on the ass a tricked shot
maybe have to set up the hypo
on the toilet seat for accidental
sitting-on of the cure
and you are late for your presentation
in which you discuss disaster aftermath
The mother in the dream shows
her new baby with mismatched
sized eyes
and I pretend not to see
the “Ghosts of Christmas Past” fall asleep
and found your mouth in a kiss
You can keep the beer
Faint face whiskers
Black beans on toast
I said Fuck it fold socks
The extension cord will not
reach the light wrapped
around the pear tree in white
MEANT TO
Meant to cover the mouth
Silver strands now and a cloak
Hair as long as yours undone
Knocks from the Frigidaire her
flee to seek
San Francisco
Eat red candy hearts
Up from sleeping wet hair
Sister could see her sticking
You leapt Her beauty fell
fall of her Helle was her name
Fall into sea irretrievable
Cape to ash to mourn? Her
or was the torch
Did you torch?
Your running
Did you turn when
your sister fell?
The Opal Palace
by Greg Hewett
Some memories come
like opera on
the soundtrack of a thriller
you’re not really following.
Something Italian.
Soprano.
Like opals is all
you can think,
and then don’t,
and don’t stay for the credits,
don’t remember the movie,
don’t want the music
to go on inside your head.
Like opals,
those places inside your head.
Made of light
and water as much as stone.
Solid illusion,
like opals
they easily break,
like opals
they should never be given,
should remain hidden
in green-velvet-lined boxes.
It would be
like drowning to know
the words she’s singing.
Knowing the words and going
back to places forgotten
would be like drowning
in a deep clear lake.
From way down
you’d be staring up
as sunlight
breaks into
a million prisms
falling down
around you.
Like being imprisoned in-
side an enormous opal,
dying to breathe one
fragment, one
note of pure beauty.
So over the top, opals.
Like an opera
death-scene. Or more like your life
becomes so overheated,
an over-lit display case
at the jewelry outlet
right next to the megaplex
you frequent
with disappointment.
LAST OF ALL AROSE THE AGE OF HARD IRON
A very short play from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book I
by Sun Yung Shin
CHORUS
“My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of a different kind.”
* * *
THE UNDER EYE
“…all manner of crime broke out”
THE ANCIENT WOODS
“Now sailors spread their canvas to the winds,”
A SPYGLASS
“The land, which had previously been common to all, like the sunlight and the breezes, was now divided up far and wide by boundaries, set by cautious surveyors.”
FOREIGN COINS
“This wealth was a further incitement to wickedness.”
A GILDED HAND
“By this time iron had been discovered, to the hurt of mankind, and gold, more hurtful still than iron.”
WITH ITS BURNT HELMET
“War made its appearance, using both those metals in its conflict, and shaking clashing weapons in bloodstained hands.”
IN DARK DWELLINGS
“Men lived on what they could plunder:”
THE WEIGHT OF HER THROAT
“All proper affection lay vanquished and, last of the immortals, the maiden Justice left the blood-soaked earth.”
View
by Bruce Holsapple
Grayish, green bushes
topped with yellow fuzz
how the rabbitbrush
seems to flood this arroyo,
make the entire wash a garish yellow, pale gray
destroy cloud madden stung girl show saturated
chair rectangular window
saddened
intense flash of intimacy
pop pop crash
I’m not trying to be your boyfriend
I’m trying to take advantage of you
to seduce you
love the way the arroyo wanders back
into stony canyon walls
up thru broken rocks
imagine rain tumbling down that rocky chute
splashing, fanning the sand
It’s probably the elevation that counts
your ability to rise
not the failures
that’s where you meet eye to eye
tho given the way I formulate ties
think about friends & affections
the way I fantasize
why I get so invested, say,
responding to what XYZ said
how that’s active & I feel called upon
What I want often as mystifying as who I am
No one wants to be taken for granted
no one wants simply to be flesh
one wants, rather, to be cared for, inspired
to get some song in gear
seize hike flower trumpet generosity
mixed vegetables
“going hand in hand”
O do your best & if it falls flat
you flip it over & walk
nothing to look back on
nothing to carry away
nothing to regret
what else navigate by
than intention—
what you mean to do?
Okay that you’d choose to feel safe
Look at the ways forward
that’s where the ethical intrudes
how you’d do to others
what cause them to feel
far from straightforward
how one interacts, shared surfaces
where the hooks latch
star of circumstance
jar of honey
marred threshold
red-haired Thursday start nuisance wind
Waking inside that glare
both induced & contended with
shared attention
you need distinguish problems
that make you grow
from those diminishing you—
not shrink before a challenge
flow sluice boil unloosen
do want to increase your affection
do wish you well
& that’s not contingent
on whether you care for me or not
do want I confess to hold you
to go places
with you & want you to know
I simply meant to share that with you
where I wanted to be
It’s okay you changed your mind
let the door slam
reflect off you thru-out the day
living for that attention
begin to drift
Walking the rocky bed back
into the canyon, up into the boulders
scale the drop offs, pull over rocks
thread yourself thru
pick a way into brush, over scrabble
emerge above the junipers
the hillside composed of flakey, old cliff face
stiff climb to the top, scramble
for the sheer brown escape of it, up up
can’t hardly breathe
Above that cliff ledge, the landscape below
sand, cedars, granite, sunshine
takes on a golden hue
blue background, roughened cloud,
yellow tinted lip as it curls
a view to belong to
be inside, keeps your eyes wide
latin tendere—to stretch
yet there’s a particular slant
to these feelings
my obligations to you
others, that’s where the failure lies
some contract unfulfilled
that what you want happen
think you want
obscures everything you do
want to hold on you’ll find
any excuse, try & reinforce the need
go deep enough slow enough
I mean you can’t clutch & go
& letting slow
first rate heart ache fake & mistake
It was the intimacy
pumped me up so
What I hate most is the narrowing down
reduction to same, the expectations
what I’m supposed to feel
why don’t you write
why didn’t I call
my fault your fault
always on trial
my selfish no my desire
is not that I'd
somehow “have” you
rather would be part
of whatever makes you who you are
the respect you get
that’s the same respect you grant others
“You” isn’t the pivot, the angle
“You” is the view
come downhill at an angle
so that my shoes
dig to the side, work into the slope
sun in the eyes
toes scrunched
wings drooping
why do I keep trying to get close
Okay I’m not quick not pretty
not heaven forbid interesting
don’t know how to join
a conversation or to leave one
find you by accident
eyes wandering
no end to searching for what’s genuine
& here you are
me trying doggedly to stick
maintain the topic, no adhesion
simply hang on
sound friendly
better yet focused on you
that does get thru, doesn’t it?
by sara brickner
My mother learned young to strip potato skin thin like parchment paper.
She learned to let out hems and take in waists for a child's frame, and after her mother’s last thimble
fell through the floorboards, she learned how blood stains.
She learned to be more
careful, to save things, because everything has value and if you’re clever,
you can change what somebody thinks a thing is worth just by how you talk about it,
because what people think is everything when you don’t have anything else.
She learned that tears get a reaction but a smile has more mileage, and
how to tell by his snore if her daddy had drank enough that night to reach in his pocket with
nimble narrow fingers and pull out whatever change was
left over.
She learned to stand up straight in front of her mother, because her father never would hit his own child,
even when he was drunk,
even though she wasn’t really his and everyone else knew
why her mother troubled to take all those kids to Missouri every summer while her father stayed
behind in Michigan to work.
From him, Ford got forty-two years and three fingers.
While they were gone, he grew a vegetable garden wider than the house.
It had two bedrooms and an attic, where she slept with her sisters.
Years later, after my mother finally got all the fine things she’d ever wanted for herself,
she still saved everything,
her sewing kit full of faded fabric squares and frayed thread,
our freezer packed full of food older than all my clothes.
my mother prepared for the worst that never came and finally
my father got tired of holding his breath.
and when he left for a woman who smiled with her whole face,
who laughed loud and screamed louder,
who smoked and drank and always said exactly what was she thought whether
she spoke or not,
my mother reached into his pocket and took everything
out.
The Kiln's Bravado
by Colin James
As naked as the sun
now available in stores,
check the cold remedy isle.
Tour Guides Sometimes
Too, to the modern,
let it drift out
with the last straggler.