Journal

Stones Rise

Skimming the edge of an esker, gravel crunched by boots,
immature red polyps on bushes and white cranberries
popped up off to the sides, cedars dead or dying,

I stop to catch a breath on the scoured bowl of the glacier
near the hilly farms toward the Horicon Marsh
and the drumlin ponds like brimming spoons below.
I can’t hear a thing except the earth itself,
a hum and moan like the sound my large brother made
when he rolled over in his sleep.

There is no dead silence. Even before our time,
ice gathered and cracked. Rivers ran down crevasses
and trickled on these eskers like a flume to points south.
Water and wind effaced glacial slabs into till.
Sand subverted, rocks rose.

Even now, without the growl of a car in the distance
or the echo of a voice, sand and gravel ping,
shift, a pebble falls, another, inert ground yet grinds,
even brother Paul, dead, shifts in my chest,
jostled, rises like a stone in my throat.

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, spending the seasons dodging fires, floods, earth-shaking, and all the other scrambling life-initiatives. He has contributed to Heartwood, Tiny Seeds Journal, Vita Poetica, and Willows Wept Review. He has a chapbook for free download at Red Wolf Editions and a second chapbook available from Red Bird Chapbooks.

Abandon Ship

Every voyage to Antarctica begins with an alarm,
for a drill on how to abandon ship.
Run aground, struck by ice, or caught on fire,

it’s the same, seven short followed by one long blast.
Find your personal flotation device.
Dress warmly, bring medication,

leave everything else behind.
Walk calmly to your muster station.
Speak up when your name is called.

Await further instructions.
Be prepared to assist in launching life rafts.
The little boats are hollow orange lozenges,

twice a man’s height in length. Each holds twenty people,
or in a pinch, more, like sardines.
The seas may be rough

for who knows how long.
Never mind Pete, for everyone’s sake,
try not to get sick.

If things get dire and the pod is compromised,
you’ll have to jump in water, so cold
death may occur in as little as fifteen minutes.

Then, you will need
to wear an oversized neoprene hazmat suit.
Only your face will be exposed.

You’ll have a whistle and a little blinking light.
You’ll have one thumb and two large fingers on each hand.
You’ll become a bright orange lobster Telletubbie.

This is your fat fighting chance.
Mercifully, the voice on the intercom dispels your dismay.
It’s time to set sail. You may want to visit the bar.

John Paul Caponigro is an internationally collected visual artist and published author. His poetry has been published in over 50 literary journals on 5 continents, including the Ekphrastic Review, Little Blue Marble, and Blithe Spirit. He leads unique adventures in the wildest places on earth to help participants make deeper connections with nature and themselves creatively. View his website and TEDx and Google talks here.

Zhen Xian Bao 35. Papers: marbled momigami, paste, antique acupuncture booklet, mulberry, fabric cover. 10”x 22″

I think I should have loved you presently

–after Edna St. Vincent Millay

Better yet, I should have loved you unflaggingly,
‌‌           instead of beating you with words harsh as bone.
‌ ‌                    Lavender night, a strong house looms for all to see,
melancholy rooms. I clutch your hand to atone;
‌          to dazzle you, all my pretty flung foibles drape
‌                    a shawl, or shroud—your hair, your dress undone,
you trip, stripped of innocence and shorn of escape,
‌          up to the attic through a skylight darkly spun
‌                    eleven stars caught by a black-branched tree spill
in silver moonlit slashes—a metaphysical dream—
‌          only to halt and falter until, hot animal breath
‌                    bears down—a sudden scream—ghost in marble
‌                              oh melancholy girl
‌          you who I would have kissed—yesterday or this.
‌                              Delicious wildness.
A warbler drinking from my wineglass strikes
‌          its wings against the stem—the pressure point
‌                    of my pulse. My ardent arms embrace you,
you swoon—too soon—reflected in the pier mirror
‌          laddering up the whitewashed wall.
‌                    The goblet shatters.

Sex-couplet Ghazal

Your gleaming eyes spark across my shining-sky sex—
your hips, your thighs, your kiss are my learning to fly sex.

I see you in naked moonlight and stare like a fool.
My flower melts in your sweat—my learning to cry sex.

Every time I fall, I spout hidden thoughts I should not say.
I explore your dips and gullies in spite of my shy sex.

You gather me into your fist while I smolder,
You—both my despair and my addiction-high sex.

Yet you remain a treasure tucked under my pillow,
I would gladly make this night, this lifetime-entire my sex.

Oh but wake up and get up, Dale! Such thrills sting.
Without your touch another woman would surely buy sex.

Dale Champlin is an Oregon poet and artist. Many of her poems have appeared in The Opiate, Timberline, Willawaw, Cirque, Triggerfish, and elsewhere. Dale’s poetry collections are: The Barbie Diaries, Callie Comes of Age, Isadora, and Andromina: A Stranger in America. A collection of poems about Medusa is forthcoming.

Your Abrupt Departure

Cooled candle wax.
Pile of burnt matches, whiff of sulfur.

Salt lacing the plate,
cork wedged in the neck you would

absently rub. Your door
key found near the front door whose

knob would shiver
at your touch. Dawn light stretches

heel to toe, yawning.
Indented throw pillow waiting it out.

You don’t say

you’re sorry. You call
to say you’re sorry you didn’t call.

Your idea of sorry
is to call and remain silent,
exhaling into the phone.

You’re sorry,
you now admit, that you didn’t
speak on the first four tries.

I counted six
but perhaps others dialed. Others
weary of words?

This gives me pause.

It was a misstep when I
accepted your exhale by inhaling,

a form of buddy breathing. Only
we aren’t buddies. I hope

you quit. Calling.
Exhaling. Believing I will breathe.

I am holding my breath.

Margo Davis has been awarded ten writing residencies, the more recent in
Southern Portugal, Budapest, and Italy. A three-time Pushcart nominee, her poems
have appeared in Equinox Biannual Journal, Lamar Press anthologies, Verse Daily, The
Ekphrastic Review and Panoply. Her chapbook Quicksilver is available on Amazon.
Originally from Louisiana, Margo lives in Houston.

Gratitude

After we’ve set the book down,
it’s all right if we only
remember the paper cuts.

It’s all right if Eliot stands under
a bare bulb for days
writing two lines.

We should thank our suffering—
Chopin coughed up blood
composing his last mazurka.

We come from an ancient family
of weepers—A certain grief
gave birth to us all.

A flash of agony stokes the coals
in the heart’s furnace. We burn
like the scrolls of Alexandria.

It’s OK to break down before
the poem is over. Everything we’ve lost
carries us on the wind.

Alexander Etheridge has been developing his poems and translations since 1998.
His poems have been featured in The Potomac Review, Museum of Americana, Ink
Sac, Welter Journal, The Cafe Review, The Madrigal, Abridged Magazine, Susurrus
Magazine, The Journal, Roi Faineant Press, and many others. He was the winner of
the Struck Match Poetry Prize in 1999, and a finalist for the Kingdoms in the Wild
Poetry Prize in 2022. He is the author of, God Said Fire, and, Snowfire and Home.