March 2018

VOL XXV!, Issue 3, Number 299

Editor: Klaus J. Gerken

European Editor: Mois Benarroch

Contributing Editor: Jack R. Wesdorp

Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena; Oswald Le Winter;

Heather Ferguson; Patrick White

ISSN 1480-6401

INTODUCTION

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya

CONTENTS

Julian O'Dea

Jeff Bagato

Jonathan Beale

Steven Stone

Jim Bennett

dan raphael

KJ Hannah Greenberg

Michael Lee Johnson JÓZSEF BÍRÓ

POST SCRIPTUM

kjg

Jorge Etcheverry Arcaya

Youngsters

And the flower of the race let fall this generation like light petals on the dark earth and the

old ones grew hopeful, living out their last days, silently watching with pleasure the

movements of these new youngsters who trained themselves in the art of living

"The Chains that oppress us will in time be broken by our sons or grandsons, stronger than

we. The winds blowing from East and from West will fecundate their actions and their

thoughts, like other common winds that swell the sails of the boats all day"

But the blood covered the cobblestones like a kind of moss, like the parasite that afflicts the

elm tree, as the most audacious and beautiful of this new flock got ready to take off

vertically, like quails

And hope, like a paper flower, burned on the chests and extinguished itself beneath the

closed lips of those who were starting to look at things with new eyes.

Some of our best offspring had the luck to die very young

This has made us more careful with the rest

The marshes that surround the city are a breeding ground for disease

Julian O'Dea

High in the House

The long fidgeting leaves of the gum trees, the waving branches outside the window belie the stillness of the room, the glass sealing me inside like a specimen case.

High in the house we might be of the trees, gliding around the globe, looking, swooping down, settling in at evening; but I feel like Stylites, a hermit on a platform; better to worship on the ground.

Comfort

A cat is cosiness on four feet: four-square cosiness; like a blanket, like a pillow, like a cushion; in the business of comfort. He raises his tail high like a banner to advertise his readiness to dispense his expertise, expert ease.

Lizard

Out of a hot day out of a woodpile out of my boyhood comes the penny lizard like a moving bending brown twig from childhood when anything is possible.

I Think

I think of small breasts

of comb jellies in the sea

of gentle Welsh hills

of white mushrooms on

the trunks of trees

of ripples on a shallow pond

I think of small breasts

puppy

and the puppy circled around, snuffling, until he found the softest spot in my heart

Out for a walk

Billowing red roses like bursting hearts on stakes, lined the garden, as many as the sorrows forgotten by those walking by; for nothing remains that is not in cultivation.

Jeff Bagato

Too Much of a Good Thing

You don’t crush an egg

with a hammer

when a boot will do

Walls collapse

with less effort

than expected

A river floods,

and surplus

becomes disaster

A man’s words

turned against himself

will rot his being

from the inside

out

Something for Everyone

A fountain pushes only so much

water as gravity allows

In summer sun,

it makes those noises

of a clear rushing stream,

tricking the wind itself

to dance up as a breeze

Pavement burns under rubber wheels;

the metal shell shines

like an outer soul;

another good pretender,

it never goes quiet

when it rests,

but keeps braying fumes

that hope to choke

light and breath

from every unexpecting man

Under the Weather

loose earth scoured away

by a river’s rage—a grand

city’s name sucked under

to nest midges and worms

walls require such dignity

if they will command a people,

holding human lives

in a stone hand

to crush or cradle at whim

fallen upon wet times—

an overflow of blood or rain—

even these megaliths

can crumble their mortar:

laws, legends,

legerdemain—

a talk, a writ,

a cheat upon the tongue

that dissolves first

upon hard weather

or harder times

Jonathan Beale

1

Sunrise

Why rise so early? She is there

Ramifications’

Foxes and bats lay low

As some dark theme extracted

From our culture – borrowed?

More likely to be stolen.

Gone, as the rest wake.

2

His final scene

This recently denied fox his cunning

His snout – this torpidity

Unknown before today.

On this dull black wet tar

As an elderly woman roams

This way and that

Her torch seeking her once

youthful gaze – unaware of age and death.

The fox - centre stage and unaware

Of his moment of undistinguished glory

as cars pause in some mark

abstract mark of remembrance.

before going on to where

they have to go….

3

Chopin

Every human emotion; once prized now

Conveniently forgotten or now event just lost

In this garden of bitter and distracted herbs

Why in this world of black and white

The sharps penetrate – the serotonin’s rush

Dog day afternoons – laying staring at the ceiling

The merlots pulse mingled in the sanguine fluid

The strange muse turns her back. Just for a while

An unusual delicacy – the fine mixture of air and ice

Hoover over the doubt that consumes

The inevitable ‘ where’s and ‘why’s ’ and of course

‘Why not’s’ she is there as am, yet still unconnected.

4

On not being Dante

Who’d undertake the roll of author and character;

In that one breath.

If not for the large vein of vanity – or does the reason

Require something other than the self, justifying the self.

A silent torment

In one breath – seen only in the cold air

Who can abstract this to clarity?

And what canvas can one use?

Down and down

Until the air is gone.

5

Vincent Van Gogh

This absinthe day: the light claws back

In his own private satanic psychosis

The simple light fuels and infuriates

The path of his daily routine.

A pause in breath; a pause in life.

The image, the frozen verb – dead.

His mental tide – is out

Amid this stormy aridity visionary sand storms

Blind and blister – the souls power.

Away through the eyes

‘Trova la regola’* – then forget

Watch the rain devour, as it rinses.

The single glass of absinthe. A monument.

A monster conspiring to create and forget.

*Find the ru

Steven Stone

TIME WITHIN MY EYES. I live in a cave of my own invention, Lie down and save my time within my eyes; In every rock I leave a mention Twisted and wrung like a damp towel – My making hides the sun from herself – And all the rocks I collect On my naked shelf Would speak of the making As separate as eagle from dove, as a cave would wait a billion years, shaking, for a first hint of light A brilliant hail of love January 2018

GREEN AND BLUE.

I was young and one with the sky

I was blue in the ocean of space

I held the moon in my opposable

grasp

When the grass gave its distinctive

scent

I fell asleep, and dreamed;

and the sand reared its back and chest up to the shore,

with shells that sang

a wedding song

spring was as green as hope in the sea

and the river in its rapture seethed in

its waves

I tried to find my way out – but

aye, I was too young

to release

my future staring at me with monument eyes

February 2018

Jim Bennett the legislators take coffee a motorbike engine breaks into the quiet morning a breeze moves the grass far away a bird calls sunlight drives off the overnight frost patches remain in shadows and on bare trees it could almost be Paris in those years between wars or Grenwhich Village when people thought it mattered outside a coffee shop six poets sit around two tables reading to each other no one listening

the search for an ending

you set off in search of an ending follow a weathervane its flat body like a stick as it turns with the wind or the geography of the road showing its metal feathers in its upturned tail or your sailors in a tall ship stand on ropes high above the deck drop sheets to catch a wind or you are guided by a river or a path through a forest a photograph or a painting something heard seen or read that drives you to a journey but you never know where you are going you are led on from line to line until you arrive wherever it takes you

New Year again the New Year has arrived and everyone is talking it up full of hope with a bit of luck the euphoria will pass in a few days we can get back to normal I dislike the false bonhomme of New Years Eve the singing holding hands I head to bed but won’t let it pass unremarked I review the year and my past reviews of past years flick through diary pages of memory like a digital frame with changing pictures I pause on some that are more distant every year events remembered but faces fade the New Year has arrived much like the last one and the one before there is more to put away more books CD’s DVD’s from presents and sales that’s about it really probably the last year I’ll do that most things are digital now I store all those on my phone and computer I used to file my letters at the end of each year I don’t get many now unless they are to remind me about something the last letter from a friend was two years ago and emails tower up like a Babble of insignificance

with the New Year I suppose I should bury the dead along with the date confine them to my history along with everything else

dan raphael

In a Beginning

No matter how many trees we peel, how many cars

we turn into mosaics, i know this isnt my city

though theres a house with my name on it

overcoats for curtains, faded maps of imaginary nations for floors

how do you hang a one-way door

no matter how many mouths i open water refuses to enter me

First the scab, then the lake

still water brings algae brings fish bring birds

bring a sky to fly in, clouds for nightly shelter

we have no word for sun, no word for walking—

i either fly or run, with or against the ever wind

the traffic in my mind looking for places to work or eat

listening for a name i heard only once,

an accent no song can contain

Once let in

once without rain

the first fire cant be stopped

Narrow July

Highs around 80, lows around 60, for weeks

The weathers as stuck in routine as i am

Danger of sudden change

Would like some rain but don’t want 95

When you step out of line who knows what you’ll find

I thought only one train came through here

My watch will tell me if i ever change time zones

My phone is hungry and looking for noodles or burger, maybe burrito

Without tastebuds but knowing the balance

I wont go out today

Coffee before internet, practice before beer

Day to day, year to year

A hard rain lifts a piece of roof

An unexpected step cracks an ankle

The bathroom will never be downstairs

My hair stopped growing 5 years ago

At the rate i've lost pounds the last eight years

By the time i’m a hundred & ten i’ll be weightless

“The past is never where you left it.”

Katherine Anne Porter

I had to buy a smaller belt,

couldn’t afford a shirt that looks like lebron james’ chest

i started wearing a hat coz i was forgetting to duck,

cause i no longer felt i was the one who had to get out of the way

i can hold my breath in either hand, my palms can expand like parasails

but neither the wind or my arms are strong enough to lift me

when i realized 20-20 was more a matter of will power than optics

when i found the audio equalizer in my brain, not far from the translation modules

for languages from my past—polish, finnish, indo-european

What will tomorrow do for me, is it time for booster shots

against capitalism and america first, it takes less and less stupidity

to trigger allergic reactions, lowered immunity means a single shot of frustration

disrupts my ability to socialize or drive, i want the opposite of a vaccine

so i can more easily go viral

Just because the sign says walk doesnt mean thats the direction to go.

sometimes walk means be gone, sometimes the best way to be invisible is keep talking.

sometimes theres no time, often there’s way too much space and very little room.

when the ledge is an inch wide and the cliff is coming toward me

like a five story breaker, murky with tendrils and chunks,

the skys as clear as 1930’s pittsburgh, rain the flavor of double-shift coal miner sweat—

some days i’d go through 3 shirts to keep a clean collar,

to contain my fuming hunger so i had a chance to sneak up on something

Floor Drum

As if on the floor, surrounded by things to hit time with,

smiling up toward the light, hundreds of sensors

on the bottoms of our legs and butts

reading the earth, feeding the street

aching to flood like a dog at the door,

What comes to my house not my house, space i borrow,

time i’m eaten by, ignoring how the house declines,

becoming more transparent, like 85 year old skin

still attached but increasingly scripture.

How paper can sometimes take human form, any form it wishes

when properly given the blues, when swimming beneath

the red horizon, flying like a star made from a paper cup—

a way to fold space and make it solid

As some napkins have bones, some whale bones

got wrappped around my body as if i was a ship

taking how many to what they werent ready for

A knock, a thrumb, a semi going through a phone pole

so much held in we get deep enough for neutrinos

so far from home, so ready to dissipate our om, our back-beat:

if music then dance & other dancers

So Thirsty my hand absorbs the water through the glass

a thirst for something i cant get to, afford or know what to do after,

subliminal criminals too intent to act, subvocalizing,

a twitch amplified to a body slam with thousands watching

what no one knows where or when—

i’ve had sandwiches like that, from the past or cross the country

in the future food will hover, surrender, programmable resistance

make sure to give gravity a generous tip for turning its back

texting across an acre of transitional earth becomes tornado becomes petrified leaf

about to run backwards into acorn growing into cottage unhuddling into wings,

carapace, compressed inflammation on such a dry surface

hot with the friction of constant seeping, interrogation in a vacuum

what pulls loose first, sacrificing red herrings & draft-age pawns,

both sides camouflaged like sky in a blender, my first hour adjusting

to eyes with 37 facets neath waffle latticed ceiling that’s high enough for a sky

i’ll never be above:

the energy to obtain a view of landscapes and structures

my mind cant put together, a fifth dimensions shadow akin to mascara

tattooed to a continuum more punctual than mythical

trains where my heart beat needs 3 sticks in different rooms

stretching a skin over milk, kombucha, manhole covers resonating

the culverts reverse aorta, the city’s emulsified heart reflected in tree bark

& asphalt cuneiform, no birds without a hundred parking spaces within,

where multiple use means my hands and feet rarely speak to each other,

when i open my door two nearby windows slide shut, tea kettle whistles

without flames, microwaves or electromagnetic resonance

the water knows what to do in here, every molecule for itself

KJ Hannah Greenberg

Loincloth Divulgences

Loincloth.

Not breechclout.

Hardly Bermuda shorts.

Knickerbockers cover far more.

Leggings, in turn, yield nothing.

Contrariwise, skirts cover all.

Bun huggers conceal.

Fundoshi don’t;

Divulgences.

Select Taxons of Behavior

Some taxons of behaviors line up at troughs for evening meats,

Ignore those pastures where green grasses grow dolorous feels,

Stay clear of creeks tendering wee dissonances’ rounded angers,

Also, step away from salt licks spiced with prolix egocentrisms.

Alternatively, they rush to gulp down sweet ruminations, plus any

Inferences of information yielding pleasant thoughts, good deeds,

Random acts of kindness. Accordingly, such hurry to avoid most

Materialisms. Likewise, they circumvent fissures of wickedness.

Realize, the lushest forbs make mouthfeel that emulates decency.

Savvy people connect with family, aid friends, benefit affinities.

They generally sanction apprenticing selves to charitable doings,

To devoting lifetimes to trying to fix the world, even just a little.

Hospitality for a Star Traveler

Lacking his charisma, long since, additional creatures would have floundered.

Inversely, his belief in befriending unpopular people was scarcely appreciated.

Happenstance, though, had that outlander suffer neither anxiety nor allegiance.

It transpired, following his disintegration, kingpins auctioned his bits, his bobs,

Called up his fellow aliens to litigate, to protect our future, to restore antiquity,

While saying nothing of how we killed him. Unlike menacing races, we’re not

Burdened with righteousness. Indignation’s our satisfactory gateway for ample

Entitlement. We’re owed the universe’s best. When, on occasion, our weapons

Quieten complicated sightseers, we suffer no hesitations, no pangs, no remorse.

Due to the star system’s trendy commuter route, humanity’s steadily rewarded.

Until such time as clinch fighting folds to scruffier mitts, hooves, and flippers,

“Paladins’” expeditions can’t save compound body parts, florescent eyestalks.

Few interplanetary travelers operate under heinousness; they’re truly biddable.

In fashioning no actual aspirations for conquest, he, equally, proffered pliance.

Because of some portentous events, plus amazing feats, we reacted ruthlessly.

As with every immigrant, his attraction had been measured in cosmic powder.

The wheeze in his voice, nonetheless, funded new spaceships, purchased pies,

Especially extravagances like rhubarb strawberry, or toasted coconut supreme.

Ultimately, that design spoke to our guts, sung inside our heads, reverberated.

Such peripatetic poetry leaked into dreams, caused our leaders assorted panic,

Produced inaccurate attribution, increased entomophobia, triggered inflation.

Interloper karma got champed by buddies, sipped by ladies, inhaled by tykes.

Poignantly, that popularity kept him from hitching home, revisiting his world,

From where odd handlers would have rewarded his return, soon destroyed us.

Michael Lee Johnson Heaven is My Horse Fly (V2) A common horse fly peripatetic traveler vacationing in my world into my bathroom, (ride me cowboy, fly) it’s summer time- lands on my toilet seat pit stops at Nikki’s Bar & Grill, kitty litter box, refuels. Thirteen round trips buzzing my skin and skull- he calls them “short runs.” Steady pilot, good mileage, frequent flier credits. I swat his war journey, splat, downed, then, an abrupt end.

Alexandra David-Neel (V2) She edits her life from a room made dark against a desert dropping summer sun. A daring traveling Parisian adventurer, ultimate princess turning toad with age-- snow drops of white in her hair, tiny fingers thumb joints osteoarthritis she corrects proofs at 100, pours whiskey, pours over what she wrote scribbles notes directed to the future, applies for a new passport. With this amount of macular degeneration, near, monster of writers' approaches, she wears no spectacles. Her mind teeters between Himalayas, distant Gobi Desert. Running reason through her head for a living, yet dancing with the youthful world of Cinderella, she plunges deeper near death into Tibetan mysticism, trekking across snow covered mountains to Lhasa, Tibet. Nighttime rest, sleepy face, peeking out that window crack into the nest, those quiet villages below tasting a reality beyond her years.

Painted Cat (V2) This painted cat on my balcony hangs in this sun, bleaches out it's wooden survival kit, cut short- then rots chips paint cracks widen in joints, no infant sparrow wings nestled in this hole beneath its neck- then falls down. No longer a swinger in latter days, August wind.

Oh Carol, Poem You treat me like soiled underwear. I work my way through. I gave up jitterbug dancing, that cha-cha-chá, all my eccentric moves, theatric acting, poetry slams. I seek refuge away old films, nightmares you jumping from my raspberry Geo Chevy Tracker repeat you stunt from my black 2002 S-10 Chevy truck, Schaumburg, IL. I toss tarnished photographs out windows of hell seek new selfies, myself. I’m a rock-in-roll Jesus, a damn good poetry man, talent alone is not enough storage space to strip you away from my skin, distant myself from your ridicule, those harsh words you can’t take back once they are out like Gorilla Glue, as Carl Sandburg spoke about. I’m no John Lennon want to be; body sculptured David Garrett, German violin masterpiece, nor Ace Hardware, Midwest, CEO. All I want to be respected in heart of my bright sun, engaging these shadows endorsing these gray spots in my life. Send me away from these drum beats that break me in half, jungle thunder jolts dislodging my heart popping my earlobes over the years, scream out goodbye. No more stepping on me cockroach style, swatting me, a captured fly.

JÓZSEF BÍRÓ

ECHOES

( 1 )

meanwhile all sullen

tiny carefull los

: dream over – flourish again

body over sways

never looks sun – cauldron

: waits destroying fire

thinks old apple – garden

already unable orient

: knowing knows fate

no place return

draws eyelid razor

: warmly vibrating early – afternoon

somewhere must go

butterfly caress wings

: pocket finger – long wick

rugged offshoot

pains yet volatilize

: soldier – song croons grass

makes nest rocks

imponderable orphanage refines

: beside scrip bass – clamp

plumps blood – puddle praying

future scarcely plans

: banned out – of misteries

roaring sea imagines

obligatory love desires

: secretly partial anxiety

flawless suggestion searches

marked daily wisdom

: not found trenche – edge

numbered faces feather

remembers following life

: draught crying mine – shaft

stakeless trust annihilates

caresses fading petals

: lest rots ruins

( 2 )

towering intoxicated supporting – wall

sprinkles seizure zero – flour

: honey farewell intimacy

sad conductor plunges

points intercepting ship-board

: web bubble squirming

strolling sordid kid

murdering storm whirling

: deprivation lacks shortage

baby tunes parents

obliges vulpine course

: laureate lattice silences

painting raving corpuscle

room moves wine – foam

: marmalade loaf garlic

wheat – field golden hope

weed – killer sprayed shirt

: organized instigation classifies

dog – barking forget jar

mop – of – hair airs harbour

: violin – playing diligent aggregation

traffic – growing during work

hire – cloud washes sail – linen

: jealousy generates revulsion

appropriate partial order

estimation crosses criticism

: deeply projected insistence

modifies periodic bath – house

win before secession

: numbered gun grease – proof – paper

freckled unshaven role – face

track lopes track

: falling cover confronts

forgery countering protests

ruined life compares

: shame out – revolving mock – material

( 3 )

intimidated short – list blank

sound – grenade smoke virgin – sickle

: toned silent rearing

so – many armoured vehicles

innumerable forbidden itineraries

: second – hand clandestine maidenhair

important defence drawback

lunging – rein obligatory shot

: all night shortstop

it seems transfiguration

superfluously open life

: finally marked map

drought valley obstacle

landslide without depth

: flask full – of light

disappeared complete irradiation

allusion closed eyes

: elsewhere bowing winner

quick featherless swear – word

hovel anxious tranquillity

: drunken planet staggers

no sad thumbtack

invisible hail bale

: withdrawing progressing phenomenon

surely there – will – be miracle

divided without force

: pitiful copied gondola

usual thirst daily

deserved received punishment

: sand fear fades

actively accommodating anchor

lonely blunt hanger

: paid caretaker nowhere

singing – voice changes bodice

in – vain swishes dawn – power

: timeless in – time timeless

( 4 )

without attention springtime

concealed situation remainder

: without misfortune wretched

under dust – covered cross – press

bitter dream tears

: after legend empty

green – backed orphaned stone – bawn

surprisingly modest soliton

: snow – covered pine – branch slews

behind designed performance

forbidden foods sauce

: paid love decays

( 5 )

palm scar blueing

falseness swallowing sparkle

: visibly deformed experiment

created answer seems

seven – time shadow stooping

: possibly far – from pride

intentional rough touch

ornamented washing oration

: deplumed dastardly plea – bargain

all so – many dreams

glacier – pressed assassinating crystal

: originally dissembled treason

( 6 )

mostly no more

what to thing

: trencher pincushion peels

mouldy bread toasts

whitely fallen – out hair

: kninfe halves worm

forgotten table benedict

bloody scissors murmur

: understandable without permission

after ordered attack

all coffins wail

: from underneath so – much

( 7 )

asphalt drifting golden – tub

: invisible trace

undoubted recognition mauve-sprout territory rottening

sack – formed juicy cloud

: castrated lightning

added chitterlings undeniable what temporary

regained shadow – body predicts

( 8 )

approach evidently sequentially

: deniable organization

sawn pine – timbers careless exquisite insurence

box visible landscaping

: worn – out baseboard

torah – smiling stretcher – shadow intentionally melded advertising-pillar

pair – lost song – bird cries

( 9 )

spliced lightweight rose

: nameless head – skin – dance

superannuated barbed – wire – fence plastic shovel unusable

ash covers rainbow – notes

: uncertain equalization

unending polyglotism hard – shell civil – war possible

concerning completion admits

( 10 )

centred withdrawal stands

provably realizes meanwhile

: cell – beseeming watchtower property

( 11 )

unlimited access tolerability

paused meaningful dialogue

: restores probationary part – experience

( 12 )

specific fulfilment feedback

flexible closure – opportunity glazes

: star – shoot – seen life – eternizing begga – thorn

( literary translation : BALÁZS KÁNTÁS )

Master says: Look! Pupil asks: Where?

Master says: Close your eyes...

kjg 1222am 22 feb 2018

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