SUMMER 2016

YOU WERE LATE by Juan Pablo Duboue

The hourglass

disintegrates

fancy freckles

of sawdust.

 

Juan Pablo Duboue was born in Mendoza, Argentina and studied at the Teacher Training College to become a Teacher of English as a Second and Foreign Language. Currently working on his Masters thesis on the poetry of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, he works as a teacher, interpreter and translator. Duboue has had poems featured in The Main Street Rag, The Criterion, Veil: Journal of Darker Musings and Brev Spread, among others.

FRUSTRATION by Gale Acuff

I wonder what  it will be like to wake
up dead in Heaven where I’ll open my eyes
or at least one to take a peek and see
God there sitting behind His desk, the Book
of Life in front of Him as He’s hunting
down my name, alphabetically I
guess, which should make it easy to find, my
last name begins with A but if He can’t
locate me there then that means I’m going
to Hell, in mere moments He’ll send me there
but at least I can say I got a look
at Him before He dunks me in Hellfire
for all Eternity, which is a long
time, so long that it isn’t time at all,
I won’t know what to call it but Satan
maybe will let me know so at least in
one way I’ll get some satisfaction but
then again his job is to frustrate me
is what Miss Hooker says, she’s my Sunday
School teacher, so I don’t know and I want
to ask her just how many seconds or
minutes or moments, whatever those are
truly, I’ll be waiting for God to track
down my name, how much of Heaven I’ll be
able to absorb before I’m booted
into the Lake of Everlasting Fire.
But I know what she’ll answer already:
If you get yourself saved, Gale, she’ll say, then
you won’t torture yourself with such questions.
Then I’ll ask her if I torture her, too.
She’ll take off her glasses, the better to
look at me with her naked eyes, and say
Yes. Then I’ll say, Goodbye, see you next week,
and leave her dumb. I got what I wanted.

 

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Coe Review, Worcester Review, MarylandPoetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. Acuff has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). Mr. Acuff has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

ONE SAVES ONE by Robert Crisp

She was reading Sophist: an Intrigue

when he came barreling toward her door,

laughing about all manner of inappropriate

things like: a lady’s undergarments,

the unmentionable Aunt who lived in a cave,

the absolute hairiness of solitude unbroken

for a year’s worth of egg shells and potato skins.

 

“Come, now,” she said and shed her veil,

that sparkly, ocean-soaked fabric separating

her from the Land of the Living Lost,

a place she once called home but now ran

from every sacred chance she got–

and believe me, she got a metric ton of chances

which she never took for granted, God bless her.

 

The man at the door wizened up and curled

into a question mark on the doorstep,

bleeding from his efforts, ignoring his shattered

bones and splayed skull from which leaked

words destined to for a worm’s diet unless

she acted–which she did, and swiftly!–

saving them both from a certain kind of ruin.

 

Robert Crisp hides out in Savannah, GA, where he teaches and writes poems as often as he can. Learn more at http://www.writingforghosts.com.

FOR SALE: SKULL CHALET

We’ve had enough foresight

   the orgies in hottubs

fake legs under glass

   Christine’s bleak prognosis

                           long, lean and the drug stream.

We wanted to sleep                   for the first time or die

                            play clown w/our cloud cramps

             the woman’s face in the clock

         rattling slightly

                                        and snow’s right on time

                in the prim Wunderkammer

                      smashed sheetcake and stars

                and adventure map for incentive.

 

The twin’s slather us sad

       the mustached one holding

     a curse or a bourbon

green magic                  blood fingers

                the red slope of ketamine.

 

The brown-eyed Susan charms

       on the choker and garter

       belong to the little girl

       finely chopped in the suitcase

no vodka to mix in                      wet panties incendiary.

              We’ll go cry on the ski lift                until we feel something

covered in bruises from threshold to thruway.

 

Jessie Janeshek’s chapbooks are Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press), Rah-Rah Nostalgia (dancing girl press, forthcoming, 2016), and Hardscape (Reality Beach, forthcoming, 2017). Her full-length collection 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). You can read more of her poetry at jessiejaneshek.net.