Category Archives: Poetry

“A deer with the head of Emily Dickinson” – Poetry by Cassandra de Alba

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EmilyHeadDeer

Cassandra de Alba‘s “A deer with the head of Emily Dickinson”— one of three deliciously eerie poems she contributed to our Winter 2015 issue— is about a deer with the head of Emily Dickinson.

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A DEER WITH THE HEAD OF EMILY DICKINSON
has been spotted all over town:
hugging the edge of the forest,
standing fog-shrouded in post-midnight
parking lots, up to its knees
in the river’s slow swirl.
The thing about the deer
with the head of Emily Dickinson
is that no one has ever seen her move –
she is never seen coming or going,
never leaping across the road
like the hundred of deer-headed deer
who haunt our forests –
the deer with the head of Emily Dickinson
is always standing there, stone-still
in the middle distance,
for as long as you care to look.

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stcCASSANDRA de ALBA‘s work has appeared in Skydeer Helpking, The Nervous Breakdown, and Vector Press, among other places. She is a grad student in the greater Boston area and can be found online at outsidewarmafghans.tumblr.com. 

“Anthropogenic” – Poetry by M.A. Schaffner

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Pterodactyl Reconstruction - Edward Newman, 1843
Pterodactyl Reconstruction – Edward Newman, 1843

Pterodactyls were not marsupials, as scientist Edward Newman once theorized. But we like imagining them as prehistoric mall-rats whenever we read “Anthropogenic,” one of four poems by M.A. Schaffner from our Winter 2015 issue.

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THERE WAS A TIME WHEN PTERODACTYLS FLEW
around the atrium through the fountain
that spurted up three storeys in the mall.

This shows it was never about just shopping
but the seafood crisis and thermal drafts
emanating from the first floor food court.

No, I can’t imagine what it felt then,
torn from oceanic vistas and plains
as vast as half the planet, as the roads

that tie one outlet plaza to the next
in a necklace of the world’s great wonders
then hung around its winged serpent’s neck.

Our own necks swell each day.  Our collars shrink
to match the slow contraction of the time
allowed for empty spaces on the maps.

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M. A. SchaffnerM.A. SCHAFFNER has had poems published inShenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Agni, Poetry Ireland,Poetry Wales, and elsewhere. Other writings include the poetry collection The Good Opinion of Squirrels, and the novel War Boys. Schaffner spends most days in Arlington, Virginia or the 19th century.

“Siege of Compiegne” – Poetry by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens

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Capture of the Maid at Compiegne - James William Edmund Doyle, 1864
Capture of the Maid at Compiegne – James William Edmund Doyle, 1864

The 2nd of Jennifer MacBain-Stephens‘ 5 poems on Joan of Arc featured in our Winter 2015 issue is “Siege of Compiegne,” a lyrical look at the Maid of Orelans’ dramatic and scandalous capture.

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EVEN ROCKS BETRAY YOU. Chucked from above, split over silver fish helmets scampering up the wall. Not burned, stuck in the walls, keystones have nothing else to look at. So they smirk at dead bodies. When the talisman reads Joan’s transcribers’ notes it is already too late. The last group to leave the bar, the battlefield leftovers, eyes speak Guillaume de Flavy: traitor. His party trick of locking the gates behind everyone flayed facial skin. Joan’s last act in the Hundred Years’ War was meeting dirt with her face. Butcher men, sour men, like to pull things off of other things. Once, a blood orange spectrum of battering rams against torsos and teeth assaulted dusk’s skyline. Now the pillaging of tendons ends. Joan found a higher, abnormal light, put it in her pocket. No diseased white matter.  She knows her molecules will burst at a million degrees. She waits, tied up.  Meanwhile, enemy thighs squat, break bread over beef stock. Crush the crusts into the juice. God is too small.

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AuthorphotoJENNIFER MacBAIN-STEPHENS is the author of three chapbooks: Every Her Dies (ELJ Publications), Clotheshorse (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and Backyard Poems (forthcoming, 2015). Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net, and has appeared in public place in Iowa City. Recent work can bee seen / is forthcoming at Dressing Room Poetry Journal, The Blue Hour, The Golden Walkman,Split Rock Review, Toad Suck Review, Red Savina Review, The Poetry Storehouse, and Hobart. For a complete list of publications and other odds and ends, visit JenniferMacBainStephens.wordpress.com 

“Domestic Mini-Horror” – Poetry by Juliet Cook

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Centipede - St. George Jackson Mivart, from "On the Genesis of Species," 1870
Centipede – St. George Jackson Mivart, from “On the Genesis of Species,” 1870

Sometimes domestic life can be as unsettling as a pipe full of creeping centipedes, as Juliet Cook shows us in her wry & visceral “Domestic Mini-Horror,” one of two poems she contributed to our Winter 2015 issue.

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WHY AM I SUDDENLY GETTING DOMESTIC
roaming charges while talking on the phone with my mom
who lives fifteen minutes away?

Why am I crowded by too much normalcy,
with not enough uncanny ghost wings
flying underneath my sheets?

Who tossed my streaks of clairvoyance
all the way down into the damned garbage disposal?
Whoever you are, this won’t last forever.

If I concentrate hard enough, I can create
my own onslaught. I can shiftily rise myself
out of that slimy, dirty hole.

Centipedes will start maneuvering up
out of that disposal, dripping red,
but still crawling.

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IMG_1359 - Copy (2)JULIET COOK‘s poetry has appeared in many literary publications, including Arsenic Lobster, Diode, ILK, and Menacing Hedge.  She is the author of more than thirteen chapbooks, including POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP (Grey Book Press, 2013), RED DEMOLITION (Shirt Pocket Press, 2014), a collaborative chapbook with Robert Cole, MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2015) and a collaborative chapbook with j/j hastain, Dive Back Down (forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press in 2015). Find out more at www.JulietCook.weebly.com.

“Poison House” – Poetry by Cassandra de Alba

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haunted-house-1858
Haunted House – Thomas Moran, 1858

Our Winter 2015 Issue is home to a number of wicked buildings– like “Poison House,” one of three deliciously eerie poems contributed by Cassandra de Alba. 

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WOOD PANELING SO DARK IT’S ALMOST BLACK.
Vines that grow when your back’s turned,
greedy for more noxious air, the shimmer
of purple-green haze in all these rooms
empty in the middle, edged with low,
plush furniture that might conceal
knives, jeweled cages where snakes
and lizards lie with one eye half-open.
Heavy curtains on the windows,
blood-red velvet you’re afraid to touch.
Old-fashioned light switches,
two buttons, and none of them work.
When you get the nerve
to force a curtain open, you’re greeted
by a wall of foliage against the glass,
stalks and leaves twisting toward you,
away from the sun. A bird
caws once, then goes quiet.
You let the curtain fall back into place.
The noise of the house, silent at first,
seems to grow and grow –
a rumbling whistle like a teakettle
seconds from boil, a clicking
of mandibles or molars, a little voice
that whispers from every corner
all the secrets your loves
thought they’d kept from you.

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stcCASSANDRA de ALBA‘s work has appeared in Skydeer Helpking, The Nervous Breakdown, and Vector Press, among other places. She is a grad student in the greater Boston area and can be found online at outsidewarmafghans.tumblr.com. 

“Cue the Lutes” – Poetry by M.A. Schaffner

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Sunset on the Seine in Winter - Claude Monet, 1880
Sunset on the Seine in Winter – Claude Monet, 1880

Our Winter 2015 issue has no shortage of the dark, weird, sexy, funny lit you’ve come to expect from us. But with this latest issue, we also tried to have a little more heart than usual– like in M.A. Schaffner‘s wistful and exquisite poem “Cue the Lutes.”

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IT’S THE SMALL THINGS I NEVER QUITE FORGET:
the wild orange clouds after a dark dank day
as sun came out just long enough to set.

Your question at the moment we first met
about the train — then, if I’d show the way.
It’s those small things I never quite forget.

Our first free evening, and my world upset —
how busy our lips with nothing to say.
The sun came out just long enough to set.

Outside, the rain; inside, how warm though wet —
your hair a path from which I couldn’t stray.
It’s the small things I never quite forget.

A few short nights enclosed me in a net
that melted when touched by the weakest ray.
The sun came out just long enough to set.

I never saw you since without regret
for the bloom before my dawning gray.
It’s the small things I never quite forget.
My sun came out just long enough to set.

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M. A. SchaffnerM.A. SCHAFFNER has had poems published in Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, Agni, Poetry Ireland, Poetry Wales, and elsewhere. Other writings include the poetry collection The Good Opinion of Squirrels, and the novel War Boys. Schaffner spends most days in Arlington, Virginia or the 19th century.

“Invocation: Joan of Arc Reads the Crowd” – Poetry by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens

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The Maid of Orleans - Jan Matejok, 1886
The Maid of Orleans – Jan Matejko, 1886

“Invocation: Joan of Arc Reads the Crowd” is the first of Jennifer MacBain-Stephens‘ 5  sensational poems on the legendary Maid of Orleans, which you can read in our Winter 2015 issue.

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SOME MEN DESIRE SAUSAGE NAILED TO BARK just for kicks.
Joan prefers sorting iron deposits to culinary remonstrations.
That’s the true way to heathen caballus hearts.
Never downed a brandy
Talons took her liver in the after-life.
Her face a gossamer sheen of life’s never haves
Like Chrissie Hynde, that brass in pocket left months ago.
Self-hacked curls are racy to ravens.
Joan would rather cut her fingers off than caress a waxen cheek
and it’s all what time should we meet up after the war?
Primp the ocean with a poorly crafted ax swing.
Mouths ravage sound waves.
It’s her voice that mounts the men–
Wingless mongrels with clumsy carbon footprints
I chose you for your pulsing qualities
Wikipedia left that part out.
Arm to stone to crushed ladder leg
Burning hair multitude and it’s 1-0.
Joan thinks about hell and the
Spears secret guts spill out.
Maniacal reds, virgin whites, pink pudding.
Grapefruit spoon in throat
King Charles laughs a little boy laugh
looks down at all the feet.

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AuthorphotoJENNIFER MacBAIN-STEPHENS is the author of three chapbooks: Every Her Dies (ELJ  Publications), Clotheshorse (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and Backyard Poems (Dancing Girl Press, forthcoming, 2015). Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net, and has appeared in public places in Iowa City. Recent work can be seen / is forthcoming at Dressing Room Poetry Journal, The Blue Hour, The Golden Walkman,Split Rock Review, Toad Suck Review, Red Savina Review, The Poetry Storehouse, and Hobart. For a complete list of publications and other odds and ends, visit JenniferMacBainStephens.wordpress.com 

“Painstaking” – Poetry by Jessie Janeshek

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Mermaid - Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, 1862 or 1873
Mermaid – Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann, 1862 or 1873

Birds, bones, mermaids, brains in jars… these are all things we love to see in poetry, and they’re all here in “Painstaking,” one of the 5 Jessie Janeshek poems featured  in our Fall 2014 issue.

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   YOU SAY THE ONLY GOOD BIRD’S A DEAD BIRD
when Sunday’s are empty
and most girls crave a witness.

I fill the oven with muscle
   hope for a mermaid, a nursemaid
   to spread the stovetops with slop.
   I give myself leeway
   to leaning into bone
   on the outskirt of meaning.

You shove my head in the lake.
I let the algae dry on my face.
They gawk from the swanboat
as you ride my dark part
the brain in the jar
the key to keep
then I crawl in the treehole
cheeping to bleed.

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jessie janeshek headshotJESSIE JANESHEK‘s first book of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing at Bethany College, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008).

“Year of the Horse” – Poetry by Emily O’Neill

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Head of a Horse - Alexander Orlowski, 1821
Head of a Horse – Alexander Orlowski, 1821

2014 is the “Year of the Horse,”  and Emily O’Neill‘s poem of the same name (included in our Fall 2014 issue) has some strongly-worded things to say about eating these kind-faced creatures.

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I’M NOT INTERESTED IN HOW TO BREAK
a horse because what’s uglier
is whether you would eat one.

Not alone in the dessert
staring down saguaros, dying
at the hands of your own stupidity.

Would you eat one for dinner
just to say you’ve done it?  Could you
look into its kind, unknowing face,

scoop out the crude oil eyes, & carve
flank into a rain of steaks to last
until your next success?  When

what carries you has been devoured
what will hold you until you’re away?
If tendon tangles in your teeth

I hope it tastes like trampled grass.
I hope you see daybreak as a monster.
I hope your hands stay chapped and red

for as long as it takes guilt to grow
into a shaded place hung with honey
hives where the bees sting without asking

what meat you are made of, or if
you might rot in the heat of the day.

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IMG_1535EMILY O’NEILL is a writer, artist, and proud Jersey girl. Her recent poems and stories can be found inElectric Cereal, Gigantic Sequins, and Split Rock Review, among others. Her debut collection,Pelican, is the inaugural winner of Yes Yes Books’ Pamet River Prize and forthcoming in 2014. You can pick her brain at http://emily-oneill.com.

“reflect / refract” – Poetry by Emily O’Neill

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5th Pentacle of Mars (Devil's Trap from The Key of Solomon)
5th Pentacle of Mars (Devil’s Trap from The Key of Solomon)

Emily O’Neill gets Supernatural in “reflect  / refract,” one of the 5 poems she contributed to our Fall 2014 issue.

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PAINT ME SILVER
with power / let mine be the mouth
to echo all of it back / no praying,
no Devil’s Traps drawn in yellow
chalk / keep your scorpions, your virgin
blood above the door, that Latin
compulsion to leave the body
behind un-cursed /

                                              I don’t speak any holy
tongue / in it my name means mirror / call me
the rain / I’ll make puddles, each puddle a leak
towards the future / in the desert even
the rocks bloom to greet rain / let everything
kiss me that way / let death twist
back around itself like a moonflower / let the moon
drop like a pebble into my mouth /

forgive me / I’ll crawl up your shirtfront to lick the salt
there /  bang bang / call me cured / the only true trap
door out of any ritual is death / the mantra to chant—no fear
without flying, without falling,
without a haunting

                                                          where there’s a cliff
there’s a chasm / then a chill / then a voice shouting back
each secret born from your lips & dropped
into the barren dark

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IMG_1535EMILY O’NEILL is a writer, artist, and proud Jersey girl. Her recent poems and stories can be found in Electric Cereal, Gigantic Sequins, and Split Rock Review, among others. Her debut collection, Pelican, is the inaugural winner of Yes Yes Books’ Pamet River Prize and forthcoming in 2014. You can pick her brain at http://emily-oneill.com.