Poetry Summer 2017 fiction all issues
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Cover Marija Zaric
Kathryn Merwin
For Aaron, Disenchanted
& other poems
William Stevens
Celestial Bodies
& other poems
Kendra Poole
Take-Off, or The Philosophy of Leaving
& other poems
AJ Powell
Mama Atlas
& other poems
Matt Farrell
Waves in the dark
& other poems
Timothy Walsh
Eating a Horsemeat Sandwich at Astana Airport
& other poems
Nancy Rakoczy
Adam
& other poems
Joshua Levy
Venezuela Evening
& other poems
Ryan Lawrence
Vegan Teen Daughter vs. Worthless Dad
& other poems
George Longenecker
Yard Sale
& other poems
Susanna Kittredge
My Heart
& other poems
Morgan Gilson
Dostoevsky
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
The Annihilation of Bees
& other poems
Taylor Bell
Browsing Tinder in an Aldi
& other poems
David Anderson
Continental Rift
& other poems
Charles McGregor
The Boys That Don’t Know
& other poems
Cameron Scott
Ashes to Smashes, Dust to Rust
& other poems
Kenneth Homer
Inferno Redux
& other poems
Alice Ashe
lilith
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
Marriage's Weekly Schedule
& other poems
Kim Alfred
Soul Eclipse
& other poems
Kenneth Homer
Tlaloc
Tlaloc blesses us
At the Mexican restaurant,
Granting us shards of corn,
Which we baptize blood red.
The diners favor Quetzalcoatl,
And a plumed serpent leers at us
As we study the menu.
In the kitchen a cook
Frees tortillas from plastic bags.
We will not set foot in the Temple of the Sun.
The last codex has been burned,
And our hearts remain with us
As we flay the waiter for such poor service.
A resin Tezcatlipoca stands by the bar,
Coatlicue grins at the faded picture of Cantinflas,
And Huitzilopochtli hovers above
Frozen on the wall—
Such is the fate of conquered gods.
Inferno Redux
If Beatrice were consigned to a modern American hell,
That hell would be something very like
A downtown parking garage.
Dante would encounter no boatman—
That job having been automated.
And he would drop coins down a metal gullet.
Cerberus, having assumed human guise,
Would be sprawled at the foot of steps
Stinking of stale urine and lost hope,
A corona of broken glass around the stuporous form.
Dante would walk by slumbering metal giants
Oozing dark excrescences, the ichor of a culture.
Hell would be a low efficiency regime:
Leaking pipes,
Scabbarous paint,
Chipped plaster—the scrofula of neglect.
Here and there the walls of this man-made cave
Would be covered with impromptu messages
From the East Side Locos,
The Bloods or the Crips,
Or similar lost souls drifting through
The nether regions of society.
Spiritless guardians would occasionally drift by.
Dante would encounter American demigods:
Jefferson who failed to
Grip the wolf by the ears,
Punished by a ravenous wolf
That eternally gnaws at his great heart;
Jackson condemned to shed
A Trail of Tears;
Nixon bound by ribbons of shame.
Robber barons and princelings of industry
Would be punished by the theft of their souls:
Rockefeller would hand out dimes
To buy his salvation;
Morgan would find all hope foreclosed,
And Madoff, an American Tantalus
Would never be sated.
And then the nameless shades:
Politicos never to seize
The ever- receding prize,
The vainglorious in search of long departed youth,
The friends of Jim Crow.
Dante would search for Beatrice as in the original story.
How to Gut a Poem
Scale the silver scales.
Eliminate all layers of meaning
Until the dull meat remains.
Cut off the head.
Ignore the pearl-like eyes.
Sever the flashing tail,
And remove the poem’s heart.
Take a sharp knife,
And guide it along the poem’s plump belly.
Remove the viscera.
Drain the blood.
Discard the spine and the small bones.
Soak the poem in buttermilk
To remove any strong taste.
Poach the pale flesh.
Last of the Yahi
A simple soul
And relict of a slaughtered tribe,
Ishi stumbled into the twentieth century,
An object of curiosity—
Much like curios collected in a Victorian home,
Barnum’s omnium gatherum,
Or the cabinet of curiosities of German princelings.
Of course Ishi was a sensation,
A boffo hit—
Until the novelty wore off.
And the last of the Yahi
Succumbed to the White Plague*
That killed so many then—
A noble savage among savages,
A victim of the Twentieth Century.
And that microbe that we call progress.
• Tuberculosis
Kenneth Homer
has an abiding interest in history, so many of his poems are based on historical personages or events. His poems have been published by Wiregrass, The Southern Tablet, Blue Unicorn, The Lyric, The Great American Poetry Show, The Corner Club Press, and Verge. He is an English professor at East Georgia State College.