Lavender Wolves Issue #7 May 2016
I SEE THAT LIFE MATTERS By Patrick Erickson I see the live wires the live footage the live coverage the story coming to us live I see that life matters and lives matter most And then the line goes dead the life support with it And then the cover up The cover up begins Then the cover up is uncovered The next stop is the dead drop that or the crypt. Patrick Theron Erickson, a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself, resonates to a friend's notion of change coming at us a lot faster because you can punch a whole lot more, a whole lot faster down digital broadband "glass" fiber than an old copper co-axial landline cable. Secretariat is his mentor, though he has never been an achiever and has never gained on the competition. Patrick's work has appeared in Literati Quarterly, Burningword Literary Journal, Crack the Spine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, and Grey Sparrow Journal, among other publications, and will appear in Former People. Two Poems By Kristi Weber See to shining see The woman who slides a finger down the binding can't lose her place: smudges a history of prints when she adeptly plays to the front and back covers. Hands hard or soft with sweat read texture like Braille. This embrace in an aisle of dust yields an answer when open. Her eyes scan each page without a digital interruption. Mnemonic devices make clever bookmarks. She is the sole heiress and she was Miss America before everything slid from paper and tossed on waves of tumult in an electric bath. * * * * * Sequestra No one says the pull of tooth is often the pull of blasted bone jutting the gum Only when porcelain thorns scrape to birth do others whisper this is nature with possible seconds The dentist plucked with stainless tools and proved proficient yet shoddy as sports fans eating chicken wings In a yawn he saw the size the Titanic saw and said to wait until someday when the force of a kidney stone erupts from the face A lady in a green paper mask suctioned the mouth together after the balloons of pus were launched into a biohazard bin What The Author Says about her Pieces: Sequestra: "Having a few teeth pulled in the last ten years has brought up many unexpected feelings. The loss is emotional as well as physical, the pain often unbearable, and there are moments that leave me wondering if I am a failure in the dental hygiene department (despite my best efforts). In this poem, I try to bring some levity and metaphor to what was a slightly terrifying series of events leading me back to the dentist's chair most recently. I didn't know bone shards could start poking out through the gums days after an extraction!" See to shining see: "I wanted to write about the library experience in a manner that utilizes the senses. This is mostly a poem about reconnecting with the library after many years of relying on the internet as my primary resource for information." K Weber writes just the right amount of poetry in Dayton, Ohio. She has self-published three books of her poems including "Midwestern Skirt" (2003), "Bluest Grey" (2012), and "I Should Have Changed That Stupid Lock" (2014). K has had work featured in various Words Dance and Miami University collections. Her website resides at http://midwesternskirt.moonfruit.com Two Poems By Simon Perchik * You still land belly-down though the mailbox has no key --what you yank is an envelope and your hand already in flames --why now these patrols waving the children back while you gag on the gust and what's left from your hand --why only in the rain then headlong the way each step moves closer to the sea becomes those rocks that expect sacrifice and where you can be found terrorized by streets boldly in print yours and theirs, waiting in the open --you vomit as if its stench could clog the wound all these years between one letter and another. * Now that the sky is homeless you make your own season and each morning for just a minute the snow is not mentioned --even in summer you set aside one window for tracks, covered over and the wind hiding in bells --you use this makeshift silence the way a rifle is still aimed with a deep breath and hold --it's not for long, your season sets up and from its rivers a blackness flowing, gathering first as a rain that is not the sky --it's new for you, a sister-season open and bleeding :a minute rescued from the others and at each funeral it shows up ready to party, still young though you cry out loud for a mouth for the air that will not come. Simon Perchik is an attorney whose poems have appeared in Partisan Review, The Nation, Poetry, Osiris, The New Yorker and elsewhere. His most recent collection is Almost Rain, published by River Otter Press (2013). For more information, including free e-books, his essay titled “Magic, Illusion and Other Realities” please visit his website at www.simonperchik.com. Fear, New And Old by Bruce McRae You thought the spirit world was a joke being told, a joke about a dead man in love with the wind, a pun on dying. You believed absolutely in hard-core reality, the thing the thing, the matter the matter; while all about you rang the names of the dead. Ghosts, you assumed, were demons for savages – until you heard night knocking in the fifth dimension, a spectral door opening, icy footsteps in the yonder. A voice in the dark or icy draft in an empty room is proof of this ghastly axiom. A strange new terror evolves and makes striking demands. You’ve fallen in love with that which is unknown and never would have believed how beautiful is fear. How comforting is horror. What Bruce says about is poem: "Fear, New and Old' was written about 7 years ago, so the process at the time is lost to the fog of addled memory. Re-reading the poem now it apparently concerns the supernatural and the human estimation of such. Logic and reason are discarded when confronted with the unknown. We become unsettled when our 'reality' is brought into question. We guess or cower. We have theories. We simply ignore the experience and get on with our lives. This is why I enjoy quantum physics and the like. Nothing is as it seems. There are deeper layers of 'beingness' than we can describe with language. Still, we try. We write poems with one part of the mind and we explain them with another." Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a Pushcart nominee with over a thousand poems published internationally in magazines such as Poetry and the North American Review. His latest book out now, ‘An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy’ is available on Amazon and through Cawing Crow Press. Threat Level By Gary Beck The sparrows of Bryant Park do not understand the screech and bang of man’s nest building, that drives them away from feeding grounds. Unable to plan ahead, they do not know winter’s arrival will bring starvation. What Gary says about his piece: "Threat Level, inspired by excessive construction in a vest size park that drives off the birds." Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways (Winter Goose Publishing). Perceptions, Displays, Fault Lines and Tremors will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press) Acts of Defiance (Artema Press). Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing). His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City. AN EVERYDAY LIFETIME OCCURRENCE By John Grey Passing years show you a different kind of love. It's the one your life does its best to hide, to obscure to the point of nothing more than friendship. It's the one your wife hints at in this latest round of baked goods on a tray, or in the music she plays and then you play. It doesn't make the world go round but it sure can shift air masses when necessary. It whispers to you every morning, "Here, have some more." Unwitting or no, you take it at its word. Yes, you're unloved now and then, debased in various ways and sometimes it's deserved. But never long enough to suffer over. Hang on, go about your business. The pain recedes. The foul mood dissipates. It's okay. Your feelings aren't counterfeit. Happiness is legal tender. John Grey On What his poem means to him: "It's just a modest treatise on marriage, how the more ordinary parts fit into the loving whole." John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in International Poetry Review, Sanskrit and the science fiction anthology, “Futuredaze” with work upcoming in Clackamas Literary Review, New Orphic Review and Nerve Cowboy. |
Contributors This Issue: Simon Perchik, Kristi Weber, Patrick Erickson, Bruce McRae, Gary Beck, John Grey
Editor Note: Dear Readers & Writers, It's been a tumultuous past few months, I must admit, as we narrowly made it through with our newest release of LW. Multiple changes, including an editorial change, delayed our reviewing process, as we found adequate suitors for our exceptional Lit Mag, and thus, finding pieces to publish took a considerable amount of time this round. That being said, this issue is exclusively a poetry issue. In October, we will return with more beautifully written works of art which include fiction and flash! Thanks again for your dedication, it means a lot to us! - Lavender Wolves Team |