Category Archives: Poetry

“Ode to Joy” – Poetry by Jessie Janeshek

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Untitled (From An Ethnographic Museum) - Hannah Höch, 1929
Untitled (From An Ethnographic Museum) – Hannah Höch, 1929

Jessie Janeshek‘s transgressive yet playful style is in full effect in “Ode to Joy,” one of 5 poems she contributed to our Fall 2014 issue.

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IT’S DISINGENUOUS
to sleep through the day
when you’re riding a lamb-headed
totem through fireworks
scratching morality plays in the dirt.

So I eat the mercury
hang from black rings
beg you to circle my ankles in duct tape
bludgeon the megrim from me
with a jumprobe.

                            Whose hand slinks up
                            the cat puppet’s back
                            mouths my desire’s
                            too greedy, taboo?

                            Who shaves me bald as a child on the table
                            spreads my legs in the loft
                            satyrs my crotch full of sawdust
                            as you jerk the ladder away?

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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).

“I Climb Down the Tree One-Handed and in Another Life” – Poetry by Jessie Janeshek

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Autumn Trees: Chestnut Tree - Georgia O'Keeffe, 1924
Autumn Trees: Chestnut Tree – Georgia O’Keeffe, 1924

Dreamy, feral, and sensual, “I Climb Down the Tree One-Handed and in Another Life” is but one of 5 magical poems by Jessie Janeshek included in our Fall 2014 issue.

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I CLIMB DOWN THE TREE ONE-HANDED
AND IN ANOTHER LIFE

 

to varnish trains and paint a buck by number
my right eye twitching anthems
obsessed with melon braids.

Fucking left me empty
but I miss that icy month
handprints on my ass
pink stilettos under glass
and, afterwards, two capsules.

Third date I scaled the gate
slammed the Dodge into the slag heap
glowed in neon panties, my best paper bra.

 

The rain starts up again.
I scrub the wild dog yellow
name a concrete goddess
Our Mother of the Birdbath.

She says the world’s no worse here
it’s just I stay awake
half-cracked and waiting on the meat truck.

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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).

“Friday Night, Saturday Morning” – Poetry by M.N. Hanson

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night-1923
Night – Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, 1923

From our Fall 2014 issue, M.N. Hanson‘s poem “Friday Night, Saturday Morning” is a dark, fractured journey from the alluring anticipation of evening to the cold light of day.

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1.
WEIGHED MYSELF – WITH SHOES
Weighed myself – without shoes
Weighed myself – holding the cat
Stripped down and weighed myself naked.
Weighed myself wearing nothing but an apron and holding the cast iron skillet.
(I’ve always wanted to make dinner for someone and wear nothing but an apron.)

2.
There is no escape on winter nights.

Leave house, walk through cold dark to someone’s darkened car.
Strapped into darkened car, shuttled through dark.
Leave darkened car, walk through cold dark to dark bar.

Oppressive darkness into oppressive light,
Oppressive pressure of bodies against bodies;
Bare bulbs blinding against deep, empty shadows,
And bodies, bodies, bodies,
Bodies all the way down.

3.
I was too drunk.
I was drunk and dehydrated.
He tried to use water for lubricant.
It didn’t work –
                    My insides tore,
And he used my blood.

4.
When we went out for a walk, the kitchen table was still on our front porch.
The table was square – chrome and formica, legs rusted toward the bottom.
While we were gone, someone stole it.
We replaced it with a pipe organ we found,
Disassembled on the curb in front of a Lutheran church.
We didn’t eat breakfast that morning; at noon, I had broth,
Huddled against the organ’s wind chest,
Experimentally fingering the stop knobs.

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M.N. HANSON is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s master program in writing. Previously published in Vine Leaves, Burningword, Revolver, and Gothic Blue Books I & II. Please visit http://mnhanson.com to complain. 

’12 MFA: Writing – The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
’09 BA: English, Cinema and Comparative Literature – University of Iowa, Iowa City
’08 Irish Writing Program, Dublin, Ireland

“Pentacost” – Poetry by Emily O’Neill

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calligraffiti_of_fire.400
Calligraffiti of Fire – Brion Gysin, 1986

One of the 5 poems by Emily O’Neill in our Fall 2014 issue is “Pentacost,” a song of towering flame and ghostly visions.

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I WAS TOO YOUNG WHEN THE HOUSE CAUGHT FIRE TO RUN.

I hid in the bathtub, a tower of flame
around me as the shower curtain turned ash
& the ash undressed itself & kissed my skin & the porcelain
grew warm as a sun-baked river stone. Ghosts are the only city I’ve seen

since childhood. They stand straighter than buildings, sigh
louder than a house settling in the suburbs. Ghosts have street between them
we call space and airports we call hauntings where they take off & land
in, on, & around us, disturbing all our night rituals. A bath will never
warm my bones the way the oven can, so I crawl inside & leave

the front door wide.  No guests beyond the dead
come to stay. I’ve been burying letters in the mud
because rivers cannot close their ears

when someone is weeping. The bathroom is the only temple
I have left.  I press my face to the honeycomb floor, waiting

quiet for the dead & their backwards sun come to swallow every day
into its slippery heat; waiting for the hive to drop.
for the whole swarm to sting me.

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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.

“Meeting” – Poetry by Jeff Laughlin

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Love and Death - Francisco Goya, 1799
Love and Death – Francisco Goya, 1799

“Meeting” is the pièce de résistance from Jeff Laughlin‘s yet-unpublished poetry collection “Life and Debt.” Also available in our Fall 2014 issue, “Meeting” is a screaming sigh from beneath the hefty weight of love, work, and death.  

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I.
IT’S NOT THAT I DON’T BELIEVE IN LOVE,
only that I compare it to working.
The action item list reads identical:
–That careening of blood through
the walls of the heart marking the
time you did it right the first try.
That’s enough, just that one on the
list convinces me that nothing is
different, nothing is that moment
more than anything else could be.

II.
To clarify the following, too:
I have loved and lost and lived
a million lives. I have lived in
the margins– those college-ruled
maniacs trapped me there from
the start. And I will die there,
with no work grinding my bones
and no laborious thought in my
hawkish mind. I will die without
comfort or love, but not regret.

III.
Folly of endeavor, folly of light,
prayers for the uninitiated who
just learned to work. Folly of fall,
folly of man, a layer of ice upon
the next worker who mentions he
is on sick leave. Folly of summer,
folly of synergy, a weigher of soul
and reciprocity delivers the memos.
Folly of function, folly of form, we
are not ideas we speak into the void. Continue reading “Meeting” – Poetry by Jeff Laughlin →

“Map of the Twentieth Century” – Poetry by Samantha Duncan

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Moonlight in South Texas - Robert Julian Onderdonk, 1912
Moonlight in South Texas – Robert Julian Onderdonk, 1912

You don’t have to be from Texas to enjoy “Map of the Twentieth Century,” Samantha Duncan‘s poem from our Fall 2014 issue. But if you do hail from the Lone Star State, there’s a good chance you’ll eat this poem up like a bag of Buc-ee’s Beaver Nuggets. 

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YOU CAN STOP IN THE MIDDLE of Interstate 45 and buy a small or medium trailer
                to store any right-brained assertions about the maternal instincts of
                Texas hills. It exists, and wildfires apologize a thousand times
                                to the Sam Houston statue, with whom you

always promise to take a picture, but continue to take that curve going eighty,
                like you’re expecting a hooker holding chocolate strawberries
                around the bend. Every bridge bisecting the road is hard up
                                for cash, and every penny you have is

spent on someone else. Questions cost the same as the courage for vitriol.
                Corsicana could have your long lost esophagus, everything
                inside you is shelled. Mile markers are doctor appointments,
                                the ones you’ll remember for the book,

and all you’ll need is hidden somewhere, or disguised as debris. Faces
                are painted over and not on, the resilience of a
                continuous motion, and there is a green on a tree that has
                                yet to be named. A direct result of

250 miles of a sickly giraffe’s tongue lapping up un-wanton beaver nuggets.
                If you aren’t careful, you inhale a tire off an eighteen-wheeler,
                discarded like the last piece of brisket on a lover’s plate, he
                                always takes too much. Don’t mess with tires.

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authorSAMANTHA DUNCAN is the author of the chapbooks One Never Eats Four (ELJ Publications, 2014) andMoon Law (Wild Age Press, 2012), and she serves as Associate Editor for ELJ Publications. She lives in Houston, blogs occasionally atplanesflyinglowoverhead.blogspot.com, and can be found @SamSpitsHotFire.

“Piney and Buoyant, We Wave, Consecrate” – Poetry by Jessie Janeshek

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Four Foxes - Franz Marc, 1913
Four Foxes – Franz Marc, 1913

“Piney and Buoyant, We Wave, Consecrate” gnaws like a painful memory, and slinks like a forest carnivore– and it’s merely one of the 5 beautifully wicked poems by Jessie Janeshek featured in our Fall 2014 issue.

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REMEMBER THE LAST NIGHT WE SAW THE FOXES
the herringbone hunter, incense and cups?

The freak accident killed two young ladies
small gobs of white
but you only bit one.

I swallowed allegiance, tried to decry
vomiting mothballs
the size of our crime.

Ours is the darkest
union, a lock.
My default is butchery.
Your faith tastes of bad milk.
I resist symmetry
let dogs lick it off.

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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).

“them bones” – Poetry by Emily O’Neill

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Skeleton of the Chicken - C. William Beebe, 1906
Skeleton of the Chicken – C. William Beebe, 1906

“them bones” is spooky like a voodoo curse, punk like a bloody middle finger, and just one of five fantastic poems by Emily O’Neill that you can read in our Fall 2014 issue.

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THERE ARE SNAKES IN THE STAIRS
& hens in your kitchen
clucking loving wasn’t
as hard as you made it
& it might be a miracle
the birds don’t end
up strangled & swallowed
by hiss & fang

you flap & crow (stupid cock)
so early to the after-party
& your whole apartment
is women telling me not to stay
is ankle fang & feather & blood & you swallow
your tail like a secret to keep & roll
back down the stairs

I have nothing new to say
about hurt or my heart but
loving wasn’t as hard as sucking the venom out
or spite round my neck, a mink stole,
& the bones of these ugly birds have boiled & dried
so the question grows into how many wishes
arrive with each break

one for death / one for dishonor / one for tassel
shoulders & damask lampshades worn as hats /
one for bon voyage / I hate you / that isn’t a wish,
just a clean break / one for the hissing truth /
the hissing truth you’ll never stomach

if ever you knelt & asked me to tell it
I would grow scales & choke on black velvet, would spit-shine
that idiot diamond before wearing your promise ring,
would walk into the angry sea to drown
before mixing my dust with yours

before snapping a hen’s neck
just to stop that awful sound

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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.

“This Is the Shaky Phase” – Poetry by Jessie Janeshek

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Flying Fox - Vincent van Gogh, 1886
Flying Fox – Vincent van Gogh, 1886

Jessie Janeshek‘s poetry hums like a death rattle, haunts like hocus pocus, and dances like a pagan priestess. Check out “This Is the Shaky Phase” below, and if you dig that, you can read four more of Jessie’s poems in our Fall 2014 Issue, now on sale for $3US.

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I MAKE CRISES IN MY MOUTH
    harrowing the cat mask
 
lie down on the table
    jawing contemplate.

 
So you left him in the garden
                or maybe in a hot car.
    He could only come in rain
    jangling sharks’ teeth in my face.

Tomorrow I’ll leave hungry
    rummaging for arrows
    polka dot my toenails                        red under duress.

 
The pink velour is nothing
            but a snakecharm
            or a smokescreen.

                        Take the mask back off
                        bat wings at the window flapping thick
                        at the bright slam of the gate
                        my shadow’s chicken-shaped.

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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).

“Street Music” – Poetry by Emily O’Neill

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Sleeping Princess - Frances MacDonald, 1909
Sleeping Princess – Frances MacDonald, 1909

Emily O’Neill‘s poetry is vicious yet vulnerable, visceral yet cerebral, and completely at home in the Flapperhouse. We’re excited to include five of her poems in our Fall 2014 issue (PDFs currently pre-orderable for $3US). One of those poems, “Street Music,” is below:

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YOU SHOUT & I OPEN
cunt like a jewelry box:
dancer spinning over wooden toe & inside,
a jeweled egg.  Yolkless.
Glittering.

Inside the egg, another dancer
with hands over her mouth.
Inside her mouth, a bird
on a perch singing needle
song, a cranking tin machine

& the needles are shining brass
& brass is a lie to tell a child
about who stays in charge

& children don’t always trust
like a blind man must & the metal is cold
like a lover rolled over & we know
it will tarnish

on a long enough timeline.  The chain breaks.
The blind man steps off a curb & is not thrown into crosswalk
death by a stranger’s rush. The child pricks her finger on a spindle
& sleeps until she ages past ache.  She will never ask
if the wolves could’ve raised her better
because she taught herself to howl
just fine.

The needles fly back into the bird’s throat & sew a new song;
a sailor sings it from a nest above the sea
& doffs his hat for the dancer’s legs, the dancer’s breasts,

the dancer’s hips spun and barbed like razor wire.  She crumples
under the sailor’s gaze, is discarded.  The egg closes its shining jaws around her,

steals her from what frivolous nothing
the world says she means

& I keep dancing
away from
the cut.

{ X } Continue reading “Street Music” – Poetry by Emily O’Neill →