Two Poems by Hal Sirowitz

The Car Relationship

They say the landscape looks differently
from a bicycle than from a car. An automobile

goes too fast to see much. By the time you
registered in your mind that it was an elm tree,

you’ve already passed it. But on the bicycle
you could stop, pretend you’re out of breath,

and stare at the branches, maybe spotting
a squirrel scampering by. Each tree

contained a world within a world. That was
what I did during our relationship – tried

to view it as if I was on a bike, but whenever
I attempted to slow down to see you better,

you would never keep pace but go rushing ahead
as if you resented not being in a car.








Overheard on the Bus

I went to K Mart to buy
a Halloween costume

for my daughter, she said.
She wanted to be Princess Diana.

The saleswoman said they don’t
have them in stock. She suggested

a Tinker Bell costume. But
Tinker isn’t as relevant. Diana

took care of the poor and infirm.
She radiated love. Plus, she died tragically.

What did Tinker Bell do for humanity?
She didn’t do shit. She waved

her wand, then flew away. She
didn’t stay around to see whether

the spell she cast transformed
the person or left him the same.

Plus, she’s the same age she was
when I was young. She hasn’t

grown up. She only has herself
to blame for not becoming a saint.

I ended up not buying anything.
At home I made her a Princess Diana costume.

"Valley Forge" by Amelia Robertson

a hiIl was never happier than

living in your house after the war

stopped being news and

went on quietly between us

wearing large sweaters

borrowed from the floor

motionless, momentum-less

knowing there was nothing left--

still we were toeing the outskirts

putting a nose in to find, curious

--sweet wintered peace.

hymns across the no man's land

of house, empty

locus for the passing through

conditions right

to move among

it was not nothing.

"Reverse Trompe L'oeil" by Ameila Robertson

it was a trick of scale

once you paid attention

no longer flat and cold and small

but the eye of a tunnel which was around you

THE SICK ROSE by William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

"Dublin Morning," "Cupid Reproved," "The Black Dog in the Snow" by David Hopes

Dublin Morning

It’s Monday morning, and I am a poet in the city of poets,
trying to make something of the solemn
flash of gulls over Abbey Street.

It is Monday morning, and I am a wanderer in the city of wanderers
set at Liffey mouth by wanderers off the slim,
snake-headed ships a millennium ago.

I have been on the street an hour and have conversed
with two Chinese, two Irish and one of my own
countrymen, and something has my teeth on edge.

Maybe I long to see a Georgian city under gaslight,
the women in black shawls and the men still
handsome under their scruff and scars and resentment.

But that is gone, and the blue busses pass, and the
Chinese girl tries to tell me how to buy a ticket for the
thing-on-the-rails neither of us remembers how to name.

It is Monday morning and its time to explain why the gray stones
slough off words, and the fling of the bridges, echoes.
Something hidden. Strong. Unfinished.

Stronger than the fence of Celtic bronze that shuddered
Caesar’s armies. Something underground. Here’s what I think:
Because I was in love here, and it came to nothing.

Cupid Reproved

Consider those thousand valuable things
which have nothing to do
with the longing of a body for a body:
fixing an appliance, or writing a poem,

or achieving those peaks on the meringue
which I despair of–
or walking an old street in an older city,
thinking those thoughts of such fragility

they disappear into the air
at the honking of a horn or a
panhandler whining from the shelter of a roof--
thoughts that might not be of bodies after all.

Cupid, finally, must be reproved
for his assumption that all bells rung
are rung for him. Still, I am one who fails, absurdly,
to take his own good counsel.

For all the cunning of my words, in poems, in homilies
to the inquiring young, I have learned nothing.
Same temple, same altar heaped with blossoms.
I am a body in a world of spirits.

I cry for bodies, for the body approaching,
for the body turning away,
for the memory of the body
become a ghost among the ghosts,

even at an age where such a thing’s
no longer fuel for poetry.
Cupid, you bastard, with your arrows
which maim but do not, it appears now kill.

I never learn. I need
once again to climb now as I did that stairway
wrought of blood and bone, in those lost days,
when there was none but you to tell me how.

The Black Dog in the Snow

1
The dog waits for the cocoa drinkers.
His nose between his paws melts snow.

2
The father pulls his three sons on a sled.
The dog counts his own four giggling boys.

3
Snow piles in the black dog’s coat. He shakes,
barks upward, where it comes, “You cannot change me.”

Night, Brings New Clothing, by Dove

sun baking thin striped

clothing – hung out to air

discolored by diarrhea – puke-

& piss

guards grab it – rip it - tear

it - naked now I stand-

tonight as more men die, new

clothing I will wear

Terminal Reading (30th St., Phila.) by Nick Humez

Echoing ceilings, shadowed in their four-story height,
muffle the soon-to-part lovers' altercations,

cell phones, the gibber and squeak of babies, in-tow
cranky children shepherded by patient gradsires,

cracklingly foggy announcements of destinations.

Sitting with my back to the high-backed bench (dark oak)
as usual, I'm reading, consciousness rising to fall
again into paperback histories, while over all towers
the impassive angel with the dead-weight GI in his arms:
art-Deco pathos, pro-patria heroic Pietà.
Heedless, the hordes flow past. This transient temple

fosters my anonymous browsing in leafed pages (ah!
bright wings) of treaties spurned, battles, excursions and alarms,
while taxicabs honk without, and the mote-flecked light
streams on the tablet's roll-call: railroading's own
beloved departed. Behind me, the crowd in the hall
melts down the stairs, its footsteps dissolving in the rumble
of trains departing to terminals unspecified, unknown.

Two Poems by Joseph Somoza

Love Poem

Suddenly, in the early

morning, from behind

the neighbor’s pomegranate,

three yellow finches and

a hummingbird!

So sudden, that the word

“suddenly”

occurred to me, a word

I generally

avoid, considering it

overly dramatic.

The considered

or the sudden, which

is more trustworthy?

To pounce

on you lying

naked on the bed,

or to be considerate,

pull the sheet up

over you,

and let you sleep?

Commemoration

The morning was so overcast

we over-stayed in bed, turned

on the radio, listened

to names of the dead, and

remembering

we were alive, made love.

After breakfast, I found

“The Abu-Ata Concert,” classical

vocals and instrumentals

from Iran, and played this deeply

melancholic music so eerily

appropriate.

The sun is trying

to break through. 

The scattered mulberry leaves

give the sandy yard a touch

of color.

Sunday.  We’ll go

commemorate

this breezy September day

with a cup of rich, dark coffee.

                                                —9/11/11

Two Poems by Calvin Pinnix

A MASKING OF ELEMENTS

The concrete stands tall

                               

                                 [[[domineering]]]

only because the bus is late

A slave to the incorporating elements

succumbing to each’s demands

[[[a requirement for membership

                    all inclusive]]]

with the exception of interior elevation

An exhibition of circumstance

positions the senses beneath forms of closure

masking a contained projection

with observation

 

AN ORGANIZATION OF PRIVILEGE

A delicate

   

    cyclical

speculation

conditions its surroundings

to be readily responsive

With meticulous description of alchemical properties

there’s a transformation

---a sudden unveiling and recognition---

and now things move in

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]and out

of cells

  

   which sit quite trite in appearance

There’s a renewal with each successive victory

In awe of dialogue we speak

The constraints have been placed

only to be restored again

and then

only to be restored

A moping ensues

due to the floor being within reach of the ceiling

Here

))))))))))as a spectacle((((((((((

is an organization of privilege

    of surveillance

to contemplate attraction

and induce wayward wandering

Calvin Pennix lives with his wife and daughter in Mission Viejo, CA where he is completing his MFA and MA in English at Chapman University.  He is currently an instructor at Everest College, where he teaches Composition, Literature and Algebra.  Calvin’s primary interests lie in contemporary poetry and poetics and the intersections between the production of poetry, visual art and music.  Calvin’s first book of poetry, Grounds,  is being published by Argotist Books and will be out in early 2012.  He currently has had work appear in UCity Review, A Few Lines Magazine, Unlikely 2.0, Counterexample Poetics and Ishaan Literary Review.