Shannon Eddy

Gradually

Or among the flush

The trickle cultivates

Until no habit

Is left uninterested

Wince. Realign.

Unknown headwaters

Creek crawling, branches

Off in capillaries

As saplings often do.

Choose-

Act (or) react?

No man is furniture

Momentum only arrives

As dams ebb, on stilts,

As dried earth’s jowl

Rills riverbeds upwards

Out of once

Stagnant streams.

Shannon Eddy graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a BA in English in 2009. Before and since graduation he has worked with the Ocean State Summer Writer’s Conference. His poems can be found online and in print at Chaparral, The Splinter Generation, and The Naugatuck River Review as well as others.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

Let's Go Away

Let's go away
like birds singing
and rest for a bit
on a giant tree
and sing some more.

The afternoon sky
seems peaceful.
There is no
afternoon like this one.
Let's fly high.

Fly with me
to another town.
Fly with me again
in a circle
above the garden
by the pepper tree.

Fly away with me.
I feel so lonely.
Without you
my singing voice
is blue. Let's go
into the afternoon
singing together.

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal works in the mental health field in Los Angeles, CA. His poetry book, Peering into the Sun, was published by Poet's Democracy. His poetry chapbook, Songs for Oblivion, will be published by Alternating Current Press.

A.g. Synclair

Alternating Perspectives of Unreality

I

It is, as she said, static. Perception, 

like magic, cannot be engineered.

II

We are sometimes ravens, or scarecrows

I cut a metaphor and it bleeds on both.

A.g. Synclair is the editor and publisher of The Montucky Review, a journal of poetry & prose. He doesn't have an MFA in anything but still manages to publish regularly. He lives, writes, and collaborates in southwestern Montana with his significant other, the artist and poet Heather Brager.

Felino A. Soriano

morning this fragmented salutation

abridged

the hand of your repose

visceral, raises a saluting manifest

toward

experiential understanding, amid

cultural rejoice within awakening’s

multilingual aggregations

revealed

ascend

the body becomes vertical accentuation,

mobilizing ambulation

performing silent steps of a dancer’s

earliest exclamation—

portend behind curtain’s opaque clarity

the retreat becomes history of horizons and

desolate retrieval of the mind’s

elongated and interrelated

grasping

noon

all motion now adjusted,

the bend of each moment’s

ascertained concern

relives echo of effort’s rejoice:

the rest of morning’s silence

confirms adjusted emblems as

sacred dualities of darkened cycles,

isolated certainties

Felino A. Soriano is a case manager and advocate for adults with developmental and physical disabilities. Recent poetry collections include Intentions of Aligned Demarcations (Desperanto, 2011), Pathos etched, recalled: (white sky books, 2011), and Divaricated, Spatial Aggregates (limit cycle press, 2011). He edits and publishes the online journal, Counterexample Poetics. For information regarding his published works, editorships, and interviews, please visit: www.felinoasoriano.info.

Kenny Fame

Protective Moon

Blink

of an eye you appear

lost

in the clutch of night. Half

dazed

a distorted frown

hovers above. Moon

you remind me of the local

police. All

I have to do is picture

you

breaking through that

wall painted midnight

& clouded in complete silence.

Kenny Fame the poet also known as K*Fame, is a writer that was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey, which is also the hometown of one of his favorite poets Allen Ginsberg; he currently resides in Harlem NY. He is a CUNY/English Major in NYC.

John Swain

At the Ceiling

Moon of lights
on the dark walk
in the tall grass.
A girl in furs
with black flowers
in blonde hair.
I secured balance
in tree movement,
stars dripping.
The dogs bay
in rage at silence
and a trespass
into the fearing.
I struck with fist
at the ceiling
of this red dirt.

John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. Thunderclap Press published his most recent chapbook, Fragments of Calendars. 

Submissions

Over Yonder, the American/Swedish anthology, is now closed to submissions.

We still consider submissions to Rufous Salon, the journal, of course. 

David Svenson

On Crowded Trains in Cities

On crowded trains in cities,

the hungry wrapped in blankets in corners,

the handsome tall in their suits,

the beautiful with their gloved hands on rails,

the cake decorator, he knowing when to get off,

the appraiser reading the system map,

the lawyer with his handkerchief over his mouth,

the web designer looking at his hands,

the laborer looking at his hands,

the teacher talking to a student,

the student popping her gum,

the transit cop eyeing those boarding,

the mother with her daughter,

the father with his friend,

the grandmother with her shopping cart

            thinking of the grandfather,

the musician’s hands in his pockets,

the waiter at the door,

the boy leaning into the glass, staring into fog,

under San Francisco Bay, over the Charles,

under the East River, waiting to come up

for that breath of air.

David Svenson is a copy editor living in Portland, Maine. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cold Mountain Review, Poem, and Rougarou. He received his MFA from Florida International University in Miami, Florida.

Howie Good

Nostalgia for the Light

1

The beach is empty.

Head down, as if lost in thought,

I walk along the shore,

informers and false witnesses

everywhere.

2

The silver light filtering

through the clouds

is flecked with shadows,

like the one-eyed cat’s

one good eye. . .

or a firebomb hidden

among the garbage

and the seaweed

obsessively rehearsing

what it’s going to say. 

3

When it rains,

how quickly my pockets

fill up with water!

I always think

the same thing:

You bastards,

there are innocent people

down here.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the new poetry collection, Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to charity, which can be read about here. 

Merlin Flower

Merlin Flower is an independent artist and writer.