Poetry Summer 2014 fiction all issues
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Anne Rankin-Kotchek
Letter to the World
from a Dying Woman
& other poems
Sara Graybeal
Ghetto City
& other poems
Tee Iseminger
Construction
& other poems
Lisa Beth Fulgham
After They Sold the Cows...
& other poems
Mary Mills
The Practical Knowledge
of Women
& other poems
Monika Cassel
Waldschatten, Muttersprache
& other poems
Michael Fleming
To a Fighter
& other poems
Daniel Stewart
January
& other poems
John Glowney
Cigarettes
& other poems
Hannah Callahan
The Ptarmigan Suite
& other poems
Lee Kisling
How the Music Came
to My Father
& other poems
Jose A. Alcantara
Finding the God Particle
& other poems
David A. Bart
Veteran’s Park
& other poems
Greg Grummer
War Reportage
& other poems
Rande Mack
rat
& other poems
J. K. Kitchen
Anger Kills Himself
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
The Man Who Wished
He Was Lego
& other poems
Jessica M. Lockhart
Scylla of the Alabama
& other poems
James P. Leveque
Three Films of Jean Painlevé
& other poems
Kelsey Charles
Autobiography
& other poems
Therese L. Broderick
Polly
& other poems
Lane Falcon
Touch
& other poems
Ricky Ray
The Bird
& other poems
Phoebe Reeves
Every Petal
& other poems
David Livingstone Fore
Eternity is a very long time...
& other poems
Tim Hawkins
Northern Idyll
& other poems
Abigail F. Taylor
On the Pillow Where You Lie
& other poems
Joey DeSantis
Baby Names
& other poems
Cameron Price
Every Morning
& other poems
David Walker
Sestina for Housesitting
& other poems
Helen R. Peterson
Ablaut
& other poems
rat
in the old days when the music mattered more
than the mold on his cheese or the vintage of his
swill this man danced circles around his appetite
he was conceived on a oak pew in a choir loft
he was abandoned the day the plague arrived
his mother’s reasons were too raw to consider
he swept her final kiss under a rug in his heart
his dreams turned into tunnels silent and twisted
he circled the moon stamped on a miner’s map
he staked his claim on flood ravaged hearts
he glued mirrors to the toes of his boots and
waded through laundromats looking for love
the people he calls friends are like old shirts
stolen from lines in backyards without fences
he finds the more they fade the better they fit
he enjoys irrigating his neighbors’ contempt
he leaves tracks across pieces of their minds
this man’s shadow might pick his own pocket
rabbit
this man wishes the music wasn’t so jagged
in his dreams the music is always dripping
drops of acoustic candy that nourish his delight
he dips his thumb in the wine and twirls his ‘stash
he pulls on his big ear as he surveys the salad bar
he fingers the sudden hole in his empty pocket
his impeccable shadow ambushes his swagger
he samples a crouton before turning away
over his shoulder the silence grows louder
all the wrong strangers inspect his surprise
he feels like god might be squeezing his aorta
he feels like rubbing noses with the waitress
he is a son of a tenth generation heartbreaker
he has an alphabet’s worth of brothers and sisters
his mother’s carrot cake still makes men tremble
this man slips out the door into the arms of a new moon
he wakes up in a bed of roses but ends up yet again
in a mirror tending the scratches carved by thorns
wolverine
this man is a master at making time
every sundown he matches wits with regret
too long in one place plays hell with his shadow
his foot prints are craters filling with snow
his heart is a canyon with caves on the walls
sooner or later he’ll climb through them all
this man likes his elbow room frigid and vast
he likes his music empty of all but the beat
he unbuckles his belt when he sits down to eat
curiosity is an avalanche that overwhelms him
he gargles gin and broken glass to sharpen his smile
his big jaws chew on the words before he speaks
before he woos a woman with bones in her belly
and silence in her eyes and white painted teeth
another jazz angel on another moonlit street
in his dreams his lovers become mirrors where
he finds his children with names he can’t remember
a turbulent murmur shudders his sleep
snake
this man’s heart is smaller than a chokecherry
mercy never rattles the locks on his thoughts
he grins as he dreams another man’s dreams
he goes days without eating teasing desire
imagining the flavors of his favorite soufflé
he is a connoisseur with dirt under his nails
this man peddles fruit from the family tree
his mother sits nearby in rusty moonlight mirror in
hand plucking silver hairs sticking out her tongue
this man’s past is wrapped around a rhythm
he loves to bob his head and shake his tail
and bend every ear up and down church street
he whispers as he stretches the truth
listen closely to the parable of his want
hear the silence he carves when he moves
this man heats his shanty with shadows
he beats his rugs and sheds his skin before
the dew on his lawn turns to blood and freezes
Rande Mack
lives in Manhattan, MT. Sacajawea walked through his backyard long ago. Writing poetry is a way he makes sense of things, a way he prays. Some of his poems have appeared in a few small publications. He won a fellowship for his poetry from the Montana Arts Council.