Michael Keshigian, from New Hampshire, had his twelfth poetry collection, Into The Light, released in April, 2017 by Flutter Press. He has been published in numerous national and international journals including Oyez Review, Red River Review, Sierra Nevada College Review, Oklahoma Review, Chiron Review and has appeared as feature writer in over a twenty publications with 6 Pushcart Prize and 2 Best Of The Net nominations. (michaelkeshigian.com)

SETTLING

 

They did what they desired,

pursued a dream until it evaporated,

relinquishing then

to the arduous commerce of acquisition,

allowing sorted perspectives

and temperaments of trophy representations

to infiltrate an idyllic affection

that long ago dwindled

behind the guise of co-existence.

And now, they are here,

at a table of ruin,

years of routine impossible to amend.

Dinner is served,

the baked salmon drowns

in the clear glass lake of the plate,

the wine’s bouquet has wilted.

It has been decided,

the present has its promise,

it yields a blessing,

no expectation, no loss,

yet a place to go,

vague reasons to remain.

Creature comforts have

no hearts to break.

RECOGNIZED

 

He stood there,

staring back at me,

odd expression upon his face,

smiling after I did

from the other side

of a huge pane window

on the newly renovated office building,

appearing a bit more disheveled

than I remembered.

More wrinkles

supported his grimace

and receding hairline,

acknowledging me

when I nodded hello.

I use to know him well,

athletic, sculpted, artistic,

a well defined physique,

but his apparent paunch

negated any recent activity.

This window man

I thought I knew,

musician, writer, runner, dreamer,

now feasted off the stale menu

of advancing age,

aches, excuses, laziness,

failing eyesight and an appetite

for attained rights

decades seem to imply.

Yet I accepted him,

embraced him for who he was,

aware that he would be the lone soul

to accompany me

toward the tunnel’s light

when all others have drawn the blinds.

“Walk with me,” I say.

He stays close.

HOME AGAIN

 

Abandoned house, are there

only spiders and rodents

residing amid your rooms?

I see my distorted image

upon the fogged glass

of the old storm door,

and feel like a prowler,

appraising the value of items

upon your walls

or tucked in your corners,

when, in truth, I seek

to rekindle precious memories

and reconstruct pictures

the recent days

have begun to obscure,

events the rain of years

are washing away,

remembrances,

trickling indiscernibly 

through the pitted window

of my mind’s eye

as I rap my fist

against the glass,

hoping the ghosts will answer.

LONELINESS MOTEL

 

His little hole in the Boston skyline,

one window lined with soot

facing Fenway Park.

In the room overhead,

there was a clarinet

that stalked Stravinsky’s Three Pieces

every evening.

During the day it was mostly quiet,

the crowd on the sidewalks

resembled spiders in the room,

preying with thick overcoats

to catch the unsuspecting

in a web woven with smog

illuminated dimly with the little light

that penetrated building alleys,

so dark, he could only shave

with a lamp in his face.

Every morning at 7:30 A.M.,

students clamored on the staircase,

rushing en route to classes

at the universities

and colleges around the corner,

the clarinet player would flush the toilet

then turn on the shower.

Once in a while, a bird

chirped or tweeted, like a bell chime,

so close to his door,

for a moment, he believed

he had a visitor.

FISH COVE

 

Beneath the dock

from which he casts,

the water is shallow and clear,

the sodden earth

that bears the weight of liquid

is speckled with shoots

that will eventually surface

into a stage upon which

the basso bull frog

will perform his aria.

Occasionally, a cloud of dirt

smokes the clarity

of the transparent lake

and his searching

reveals the tail fin

of a scampering bass

near the shore to spawn.

He sits and watches

amid the Spring warmth

and delicate breezes

which incite the lake

to gently slap the dock.

He no longer dangles the bait

to tease the unsuspecting,

no longer allows temptation to linger,

that same lure

which spurred him to seek

refuge and the simple poem

this silent swimmer

strokes with her fin.

To read her verse

within the enclosure of this cove

is the remedy by which

he turns from the commotion

in his own life,

a commotion he has no desire

to impart.

CIRCUMSTANCE

 

“Who told you to think?”

God asked,

we naked and intimidated

hadn’t planned this,

somehow it was here

and we appeared.

How should we address each other?

What should we eat?

Should we kneel or stand

in front of Him?

Our intentions are as different

as our bodies,

each with something to hide,

something extra

though apparent as we stare,

turn away, then stare again,

hopefully unnoticed.

His design confuses us,

we are leaves

attempting to negotiate a tree,

a flash of light

about to diminish.

He insists on faith

and loyalty,

we don’t understand.

Our minds are lassos

woven in questions and flesh.

Elephant Bones

Bending, curled, the tusks

and ribbons of calcium, solid

bleached white kingdom.

If you dare, gaze in the hollow

eyes, crawl inside and rest a while

in the cavity of memory.

There was a time these creatures

roamed the land, hard to stop

upon their charging.

Now they lay in stacks of littering

biological leftovers, making their

grinding way to fossilization.

The Cavern of the Mind

Deep, we dip into the cavern

of the mind.  All of today's rambling

journey is brought back in surreal

kaleidoscope.

Make sense of it, if you can.

The eyeless figure of warning

makes his transmogrified way

into the night's flicker.

The parable told twice is rendered

again in stick figure colorless

reinterpretation.

Waking, begin a new step, let the

dream dissipate to make way 

for another.

Haven't You Heard

that life ain't no crystal stair?

It's the oft-quoted line, you know.

Now take a look at the listless

wandering, the abused dour passersby,

standing in their breadlines.

They have forgotten their names,

rambling about crimson moons,

last judgments.  They are bones walking.

Life is a tough ride, and these days it's

even worse.  Year after of hard scrabble,

I suppose it piles up.

JD Dehart

food for the vulture.

human beings are vultures
waiting until you're beaten down
close to death
before they swoop
to eat away from you
the very shelter you so carefully constructed
picking you clean
leaving a meager pile
of blood and bones
ready for the next scavenger
to come along and consume what's left.

split screen.
as I glare at the face
that looks at me
thru this broken mirrored reality
I see the scars, the wrinkles
the grey haired fool with eyes dark
as shit.
I can't recall every single thing in life
but I remember the best of-
the movements that meant more-
the embarrassments, the emptiest
the incidents no one else could retrieve.
everything is clearer
the world for me hasn't changed a bit
but now I come to the result
that there is nothing to sweat about
the truth is I've forgotten how to care.

check the weather.

dead space
interwoven separation
of the imagination and fiction
driven forward-backward
and somehow in reverse.
let's take in this interaction
with the burning buffalo
let the storm take the living
and resurrect the dead.
my mind is irredeemably demented
and for some reason I can't curb
the enthusiasm of my hostility.

the perfect flower.

flawless.
faultless.
perfect
and sound.

beautiful.
appealing.
enticing
and delicate.

erotic.
sensual.
stimulating
and carnal.

a woman.
a truly revised and brilliant flower.
the best thing any man could acquire
and the only one who has energized me
carried me over to a new horizon
brought me back from the void
I'd been falling toward all my life.
all that remains: nothing.
it's like a stain
shaped into one of the gods
of past centuries
and as I stare at it
I begin to lose
every thought I once had.
while I stand here
melting into a giant puddle
of my mind's filth
I can't look to see
what went  horribly wrong
for nothing more exists.
I am a broken mirror
I have no vision
I have no reflection
all that was left of me
has gone to the dark side of the sun.

Keith Wesley Combs 

OUT MY WINDOW

I used to write a lot of poems that started with the words

'I look out my window' and would invariably get to talk

About the sea, the people walking pass and how it all affected

Me but here I sit and all I can see is a bulging stack of films

And a bunch of walls and the merest hint of a sky from the

Top of my window all offering very little inspiration until now.

Now I sit, composing these words, and look up and out and

The grey drabness is all enveloping from the shade of those

Walls to the dankness up there in the sky suggesting that

Spring still ain't arrived.  Occasionally I stand and the outlook

Ain't much better as then I get to see our awful backyard and

The one thing that truly inspires, the saddest looking plastic

Bear anyone will ever see.  He sits grimacing, just like me up

In my room, surrounded by weeds and a beaten-up bench

As if he knows he'll never escape and again I think he's just

Like me.  Sad, alone knowing that his situation will never change.

SOAKING THE DRYNESS

The dryness of January is soaked to the skin

On a Saturday night when nothing else will do

And the need, desire and willingness to just go out

Get blasted, get fucked up and stagger home

Could not be resisted and for once I knew from

The moment I left my room that

Sunday would bring with it horrible memories

And a head that hurts oh so much all because

This drunk knows just what drinks to get

To ensure some marvellous drunken fury

A pint of that, a double of that, another pint

Of that and simply repeat, repeat and repeat

Until the point where I know it'll be safer

For me to stagger off home than risk the

Stairs, the ever so steep stairs that if you

Should fall that'd be that and trust me this

Drunk just wants to keep on drinking

Saving the bitter end of dying until much

Later in this drunken life of mine.

BARKING INTO SILENCE

The dog downstairs whines and wails

until, at last, the peace comes only to be

destroyed moments later by a harsh

barking fit that leaves me convinced

the poor thing is down there alone again,

just like me sat up here the room above

as his owners leave him to squat their

space allowing them time off to enjoy

their lives away from the worries of

being held responsible for something

more important than their Instagram

account which no doubt will be a dog

lovers paradise full of cute looking pics

of a dog about which they no longer

care as downstairs the wailing and barking

begin again, desperate for release and

freedom from this evil situation.

THE NEXT ONE WILL BE BETTER

A smile creeps across my face

Smirking with the knowledge

That it is back, the muse has

Returned as the words come

Tumbling out.  This is the third

Sheet of imaginary paper I've

Destroyed this morning and it's

Still only just gone eleven and

That makes me so very happy.

Let's just hope number four is

Going to be better than this, I'm

Sure it will but now I'm just happy

To see these words flood out.

ANOTHER HIGH

The weed crumbles into paper and tobacco

As i yet again prepare for another high

Just another high in a life spent hitting the ceiling

Dragging me towards thoughts of sleep

As the weed works its magic, a magic elixir

Destined slowly to drive me insane as

It grips me, sends me nodding all the way out

This smoke takes me out further than any i've

Smoked for years and years, out to a

Psychedelic wonderland of elevations and downright

Despair as it melts my mind until i can't

Understand what the hell is going on

And all i can think of is nothing, a blankness

That seems all consuming.

A PASSIONLESS ENCOUNTER

I was bored of my four new walls

So rolled a joint and decided to go for a walk

The night was closing in

And with summer here the air

Still reeked of its freshness

As I stumbled again along the seafront

As far along as to be near the pier

But then those girls I saw around me

They got me thinking, feeling horny

So I walked back to the street of ill-repute

The one named St James’s

I decided to get in one of the bars

The duck quacked at me even if only for a half

And maybe a shot at which point

I turn and notice there is no one else in the room

So out I go and spark the loneliness

I walk back towards my room

Smoking that loneliness whilst bored and alone

That is until I land at the door of my beloved tavern

Then it happens as a woman I recognise

She comes over and says “Hi”

Stoned and lonely I engage her in chat

She follows me in as I decide to grab another drink before she

Then follows me home, smokes some of my weed

And eventually she goes off into the night and with this one

I don’t really mind if I don’t see her again.

Bradford Middleton

Sanjeev Sethi is the author of three books of poetry. His most recent collection is This Summer and That Summer (Bloomsbury, 2015). His poems are in venues around the world: The Broadkill Review, After the Pause, Unlikely Stories Mark V, All Roads Will Take You Home, The Piker Press, Stickman Review, Ann Arbor Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, London Grip, Morphrog 16, Communion Arts Journal, Otoliths, and elsewhere. He lives in Mumbai, India.

Ticktock

Quietly a poem is keyed.

There is no hurrah

no hoopla.

As a rule

this or that journal

across the plat

will pick it up.

In imagined

stepwells of unrest

my incompleteness

pushes me to its belly.

The noggin holds this

jalopy’s gear box.

Sanjeev Sethi

Worthiness

When tellurian parleys are candy-coated

and cloying it is best to sift the stimulus.

That accomplished, welcome the company.

An adventitious brush with a polemologist

at the courtroom for his divorce petition

has me in a ludic trim. But I park a stay on

my tee-hee and censure the speculations.

Professional brief and the personal are at

variance. Is the inverse true? What about

skewing by the commentariat?

Sanjeev Sethi

Unfoldment

Political parties are in the pursuit of turf wars.

They aren’t philanthropic outfits. Behind their

gimmick of goodness is the prospect of harvest

at the hustings. Seeking virtuosity in such a set-

up is witlessness. The dodge of living is driven

by mutation. Belle époque led to WWI, Jim

Crowism drafted the 44th American president.

The mahatma unshackled a two-hundred-year

yoke. Refinement is time-consuming. In short

order snarls will die down. Trenchermen will

dissipate.

Sanjeev Sethi

Forthcoming

When imbued in imperfections

it is lame to locate

earthlings in arete.

Your renderings aerosol-like

in spray

penetrate my ruggedness.

Disemboguing is

acquittance and alliance.

Bond of skin

is a haptic shorthand,

glibber than braille

but as gifted.

When need for

paragon is peripheral,

it all stabilizes.

Sanjeev Sethi

Ropes

To be likeable sans motive

is goodness, all else is a

transactional step on trestle

table of existence. When

steeped in downheartedness

He hoists us, three sheets to

the wind due to hubris He

withdraws.

Sanjeev Sethi

Skiff

Cozing with you I surmised

you aren’t interested in my

interstices, lisp, and lies.

Straight stuff:

there is me, only me.

I must sit in with

monologues to self:

altercate with myself.

Sanjeev Sethi

Apology

In the mornings when I look

Earth is overgrown

with exhaustion

with a sad insomnia

An ocean of plastic undulates

as if it were hungry

floating its synthetic island

grimy, oppressive

In the distance the horizon

looks ill, mountains are leaning

gathering weakness,

the seas long for new bodies

Before sunrise the dark sky

spreads out like a burial cloth

turning to black bones

I hope today is not my passing

After all, what have I learned,

what have I become?

What is left for the others

in the wake of my life? 

When I’m ready, I’ll give my body

to Earth as an apology

in hope for

a purifying release

If only to float in a hush

above water, trees, land

until everyone is gone, until Earth

is alone without loneliness

-------------------------------------------

Cows Crows Mushrooms

The distressed moon gives off

the soiled illumination

of human trash. Its dust is over

–whelming.

Dirty moonlight depletes my eyes

like polar air

it freezes this dream:

in a field of cows and crows

long, skinny mushrooms

are magical gods

leading to this fable:

a confined messiah

with no magic left,

no sleight of hand,

no way out

If truth be told, eventually

everything splits apart

------------------------------------------------

Sand Dollars

The shore is overgrown with sand dollars

as if crawling

and pulling the sand apart

Sometimes they look at me

like they have faces

Should I love them?

Mostly I feel nothing

toward their pale color

even more, I feel everything

Lowest of all is when

I walk the beach

crushing them beneath my soles

and after the waves come

pulling them out to sea

the starfish will finish them

What remains are

hollow sandy shells

worthless and poor

and I feel nothing

but this wet earth

beneath my bare feet

Somehow it doesn’t matter

wet or dry

it doesn’t matter

and this is enough for me

either way

it is enough falling apart for now 

-------------------------------------------------

Book Two: Epilogue

There may be ways to make

something from nothing

but I cannot

tell the difference

At Four AM this small hour

is not the passageway

it doesn’t pull me through

or deliver the spell

to compose the sound

of dawn conjuring itself

from the darkness

that deadens it

If light is the rising truth

then dark is

the kingdom of its ruler

the everlasting residue

If something comes from nothing

there may be hope

If something is nothing

dawn will fail to rise

and we can all huddle together

in our human anxiousness

waiting for the deliverance

of a new universe

-----------------------------------------------------

BIO

Dah’s sixth poetry collection is The Opening (CTU Publishing Group, 2018)

and his poems have been published by editors from the US, UK, Ireland, Canada,

Singapore, Spain, Australia, Africa, Poland, Philippines and India. Dah lives in Berkeley,

California and is working on the manuscript for his ninth poetry book. He is a Pushcart

Prize nominee and the lead editor of The Lounge, poetry critique group. Dah's seventh

book is forthcoming in July 2018 from Transcendent Zero Press, with his eighth book

forthcoming in November 2018 from Stillpoint Books.  

wore off the shock

 

i remember when

columbine happened

and i was stunned

 

and every school

shooting after it

sort of wore off

the shock

 

the latest one

feels different

 

like the dumbass

picked the wrong

school or the wrong

time to want to be

infamous

 

of course, i'm sure

the NRA will have

a fortune or two to

spend to shut these

kids up for good

 

i've never lived in

a time where money

didn't rule everything

considered a grown man

 

another afternoon

with the old ladies

 

sadly, the pain is

much closer to the

same than i am

willing to admit

 

my mother warned

me growing up

would often

fucking suck

 

she never told me

it would still long

after you were

considered a

grown man

------------------------------------------------------------------

with a touch of blonde

 

i've always

had a weakness

for fine ass black

women with a

touch of blonde

in their hair

 

too bad it seems

like one that finds

poets with crazy

goatees hot as hell

simply doesn't exist

------------------------------------------------------------------

after the weekend

 

give me a bottle

of liquor and a

crazy woman

and i'll talk to

you after the

weekend

 

but it's only

tuesday

 

my point

exactly

------------------------------------------------------------------

sweet memories

 

i can remember

pictures of you

from my childhood

 

i was never blessed

with the ability to

have sweet memories

 

it's usually nothing

but fucking pain on

top of more years of

fucking pain

 

yet another reminder

i should have never

stopped doing drugs

----------------------------------------------------------------------

the powers that be

 

yet another

school shooting

 

18th this year

and it's only

february

 

and the powers

that be won't do

anything to stop

it

 

they know their

money flow stops

if they say the

wrong thing

 

and people dare

to wonder why

i'm happy i don't

vote and never

had any kids

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

J.J. Campbell

Body of the Whale

 

 Burnt, engraved

slipped for weeks walking on

a shallow incline. I could not choose

my steps or wear anything but out-worn shoes.

I could only be this one way and pray

I was not being deceived.

 

After many falls and aching ankles, thumb-joints, landing-joints,

and my tears in constant flow, I decided not to move,

stay as a sunken root, let the mud flood

around me, driving me deeper into the stench.

 

Fears like a cord tied to my feet, tugging me down where even

undulation ceased and it was cold and simple, without cause

or mercy or chance of escape.

 

I am at the bottom, somehow still myself.

There are strange translucent reptiles brushing

at my extremities. No way to eat and no breath left to be had,

under here in this lightless territory, not much different

than the depths of space, than the place I was first born.

 

But there, I was one with the darkness, and the stillness of void

was tender, womb-like, all I knew. I will find that again here,

 

stop resisting, diffuse, painfully, but with the least amount

of rebellion or horror - dissolve like candy floss in a child’s

mouth until I join the blank weight digestive track,

welcome the bottom feeders and the algae pocket swirls

as my own flesh, until there is nothing left of me but this indent bed,

the space inside this bed that keeps my body. And soon

even that will fold over, coalesce, as though it never was.

 

I was a daughter. I am not anymore. I was waiting

on a personal love, rescue like a clean wave coming to

liquidate my mind. I am not waiting anymore.

I have no strength for hope, no heart

to withstand the hurt.

I break a part and I gather, honoring

the end of my pulse and its reign.

 

 Love is our master

 
The tone resonated the red heat

of a sea of lava burning away the dead cells,

activating a living substance. We held

hands, walking in the deserted late-December streets.

Ours is nobody’s but ours - broken train tracks carried,

dropped, put back together. The lapping wind of the spirit

like a bell in the far distance, calling us here, there

and always home.

 

Your pockets are full of roots, ones

you chopped from the ground, left there with no tree

or shrub to source its life out to. But those roots still thirst,

so you place them in a high jar in our bedroom, tend to them,

give them the attention of your brilliant mind, hurting

for their inadequacies. I love you deep in the hole and in

the twilight of an open summoning space or when locked

in desire, the two of us, giants without chains - the illusion of

isolation shed, heroes to each other’s loneliness, and the rising

of our blood that has no ancestry, no pastlives or this life before.

 

We are the keepers of this conversation. You are the place where

all my ships land, in the infinity of your eyes, a strong arrow spark

of awe-striking connection, where underground tunnels are excavated.

We are a perfect rub and flow, and we flow, fingers

over the tender inner thigh, mouths

braving more than kisses. We built a bridge and we crossed it,

holding hands, watching each other’s back. We take off our shoes,

a field is before us.

 

All animals are gorgeous, each with a full and necessary soul.

Animals peer out from behind the curtain of high trees

lining the field, waiting for us to run. We run

and twirl and lay down in laughter, like we once did long ago.

We are good just as we are. We are one at the knees and at the core.

Hell and the moaning of withheld mercy is far behind us,

we have been devoured and we dissolve -

our shells and our centers, seasoned, spring-woven,

what is ours, what is God’s, combined, surrendered.

 Commitment

 

Take the end of the root and

squeeze. Air is not wind or

a wave. Gazing into the darkest of eyes,

needs forgotten in the tale

of becoming something more than shape,

someone more than someone who rocks

in despair or madness.

 

I held you with my

mind and in my arms, held you broken and stoic

as all dangerous dreams. I was afraid to tell you

but I told you anyway and the song grew into a sunset.

 

Eaten by gravity, blurring in potency as it traveled

past the horizon. I saw

you were the willow tree, the pine tree and the birch

that scattered leaves and seeds throughout the large acreage yard.

I was a raccoon, a beetle bug and a tiny bird.

I moved through you, across you,

made my home inside of you. Can you see

how much of what was mine depended on yours?

When the yard caught on fire,

the fire seeped into my joints, extending into my aura

and all your seeds around me of brown and green.

 

Not a single day when I did not fight to keep your will and commands,

not a day without struggle to keep afloat, keep at bay the urge to

sink or draw the ravenous sharks near and nearer until

they touched - fin against my flesh and then something

sharper.

 

You love me you say, but it is a love

I cannot understand. I know it is a love, colossal, ruthless

in its perfection but it hurts like withholding, hurts

as I try to adore you and be absolved by a mutual tenderness.

You are final and in this I have no say. I love you, but we are not

dancing. I trust you, but we are not

sharing with ease. I am left aching, in sharp

icicle-tip-pounding-lack, struggling to make sense and find “the law”

if there is no mercy to be seen.

 

I should be lucky to know you even as I do, as most

walk the Earth without discovering a trace of your existence.

But is there something new for us?

Is there a bouquet around the corner? A line we can cross and keep

on the other side? I give you my wings, my prints

and all of my sacred stones. Take me

into your softness or leave me here

on these barren sharp ridges. Between us,

there are no secrets, even my children

are freely yours.

Allison Grayhurst