Journal

Dirty Linen

They Were Made Centuries Ago

Skeletons of giants
Rise up in front of you
Bones of pine and birch
Planks mottled with age
And rodent infestations
Grey green moss the colour of the swamp
Grows out of the empty windows
And broken doors
Like barnacles on a whale,
Hiding, masking, changing.

Barley whispers in waves
Softens the sharp edges
Of the behemoths
With its fuzzy bristles
Muting the pains of age
That appear starker
With harvest and snow.

You wonder of their lives
The people who pieced them together
Hewn logs fitted like nestled lovers
Those who nurtured them
Whispered to their walls to stay strong
To curve with the wind
To battle the frost
To protect them.

Axe marks sink deeply into their skin.
Killing and creating.
To some people they are
Just old barns
Standing in hollow fields
To you they are stalwart
Silent proof of time and its movement
Dying in their very bones
As they collapse slowly
Into dust.

Kristen McLaughlin is an emerging poet born in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada, who has also lived in the mountains of Vancouver, BC, where she pursued an undergraduate degree in archaeology. She currently resides in Toronto, Ontario, where she has recently finished her master’s degree in museum studies. Kristen is the owner of her own wedding and lifestyle photography business, Golden Birch Photography. She enjoys road trips, plants, and drinking coffee outside in new places.

Chekhov Reverie

Fly, swift gull, across the sea, and leave me to my loneliness.
Wingspread soaring wide, enveloping fathoms of azure swell,
and etheric cloud, you reach pacific escape that I cannot.

Mesmerized, I follow your swirling sky path; my haunted
memory eyes wind into your dives and turns, my shattered dreams
caught and broken within twisted rock and jagged foam.

An autumn moon emerges as your light-feathers fall, glittering,
shafts of translucent, delicate, quill-bone shattering past love promises
as dreams fragment into faded, fragile shells upon the abandoned shore.

A Florida-based writer, Marcy McNally’s extensive communications career includes award-
winning, international advertising, public relations, and marketing campaigns. Her poetry,
short stories, and articles have appeared in numerous print and online publications. One
of Marcy’s recent poems, “Homeless,” was selected by Vagabond Press, EXTREME Anthology,
released in October 2018.  

Translucent

I adjust a thin, cotton sheet over the space in between two, thick cushioned arms and let it drop over the front, covering all of the gaps. I tuck in the corners to make sure the sheet is secure before I crawl into the cotton fortress with my book. I am writing my own novel now.  I want to create a character that isn’t perfect. The antihero. It allows the light to come in better than a winter blanket as I fit myself in the blank space and unfold into a new book. Everyone in workshop keeps talking about how he seems so stoic, my character. They would like to see more of a reaction. I bring a flashlight in case clouds outside cover the sun entering through the window, and it becomes too dark to read. Maybe that will reveal more about him as a character, the other writers suggest. They say maybe I should draw back the sheet and allow for some redeeming qualities. They are missing the point. His stoicism does reveal more about him as a character. They note confusion that he lies on the ground, making himself small, and disassociates himself from the pain as a group of boys takes turns kicking and beating him. Why not fight back, they say? Why not react? Does he not feel pain? They miss another point. It’s not that he doesn’t feel. It’s that he doesn’t show what he feels. He feels the pain. He covers it with a thin, cotton sheet. But they have only read the opening chapters. The hiding place will soon be outgrown. The space is too small, and it’s translucent.

Calida Osti is a poet and writer originally from Georgia who is currently writing in Indiana. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sugared Water and Writers Resist. Say hello on Instagram or Twitter @rawr_lida or by visiting CalidaOsti.com

After Reading an Article on Particle Physics

Smaller than the piece of lint
she watched him brush off his shoulder,
or the piece of grit
he took out of her eye
with the point of his linen handkerchief,
or the single grains of superfine sugar spilled
next to the Gold Medal Flour
in her grandmother’s Hoosier cupboard.

Smaller than a hadron
and its electromagnetic charge,
or the quarks racing,
their infinitesimal colors
inside it.  Quarks can’t be seen
by the most powerful microscope;
they can only be seen in motion.
This is the moment that love starts
and desire.

Santa Fe and Driving

I am full with Santa Fe and driving
in the mountains.  The City Different stands
the moment stopped. But wheels are unstoppable
as the need for movement and summer’s exit.

In the mountains, the City Different stands
carved from stone, shaped by adobe, turquoise, silver as
the moment stopped. But wheels are unstoppable–
drive me as all two-lane roads drive me on their coil and stretch.

Carved from stone, shaped by adobe, turquoise, silver,
the dwellings dwell inside and around the people who listened
to Mother Earth, Father Sky, St. Francis or the sun-capped horizon
filled with colors no two of them saw as the same.

The dwellings dwell inside and around me. The people who listened to
the trail, find me willing to ride with their stories
filled with colors no two of them saw as the same.
As my ears pop, my eyes cannot believe the slopes green or tawny.

For three Septembers I’ve come to let summer go, fall begin in
the moment stopped.  But wheels are unstoppable
as seasons. I become a bridge suspended when
I am full with Santa Fe, with driving.

Melanie Perish‘s Passions and Gratitudes was published in 2012 by Black Rock Press. Perish lives and writes in Reno, Nevada and is grateful every day.