Poetry Summer 2019
fiction all issues
whitespacefiller
Cover Antoine Petitteville
Laura Apol
Easter Morning
& other poems
Taylor Dibble
A Masterpiece in Progress
& other poems
Julia Roth
Lessons From My Menstrual Cup
& other poems
Jamie Ross
Ceaseless Wind. The Drying Sheaves
& other poems
Nicole Yackley
Mea Culpa
& other poems
George Longenecker
I’m sentimental for the Paleolithic
& other poems
Taylor Gardner
Short Observations by Angels
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
No Thomas Hardy
& other poems
Joanne Monte
War Casualties
& other poems
Nathaniel Cairney
Potato Harvest
& other poems
Steven Dale Davison
Wordsmouth Harbor Founder
& other poems
Heather 'Byrd' Roberts
How I Named Her
& other poems
Greenheart
sunny ex
& other poems
Ashton Vaughn
Through the Valley of Mount Chimaera
& other poems
Linda Speckhals
Borderlands
& other poems
Lucy Griffith
Breathing Room
& other poems
Steven Valentine
Written
& other poems
Emily Varvel
B is for Boys and G is for Guys
& other poems
Jhazalyn Prince
Priceless Body
& other poems
Marte Stuart
Generation Snowflake
& other poems
S.J. Enloe
Kale Soup
& other poems
Meghan Dunsmuir
Our Path
& other poems
Greg Tuleja
Escaping
When we still had voices we used to sing
in two parts, our favorite rounds and folk tunes,
perhaps an aria, but then the slipping,
the wavering began, and we knew that soon
we would become nonessential, unknown
and invisible, obliged to silence
our own breathing, a distant, muffled groan,
a gasp, a sudden slash of dissonance.
When they drew their knives we felt the high breeze
that spun itself down toward the hard foothills
and whistled through a bend of chestnut trees
where we could hide, so penitent and still,
so insignificant in the thin air,
huddled behind a shallow spray of leaves,
a sanctuary where they would not dare
to look, a place where we might start to grieve.
But the slim tendrils parted, on a cloud
of gray mist, and they did look, they did see
their wayward daughters, resonant and proud,
but damaged by a brilliant memory
of blood screams and the bright, blazing chaos
to which we must return, bearing the pain
of renunciation, and a last loss
of hope, two songbirds trembling in the rain.
The Woman in 302
This morning the woman in 302
rolled the piano toward the window again
and this time out it went, from three stories up,
a didactic gesture, she later explained,
rather than an aggressive one
although she did admit to being surprised
and perhaps disappointed
that no one was hurt.
She must have been more singularly determined
this time, and able to command the resolve
that is needed to do such a thing,
but we always knew that she possessed
enough leverage of spirit and control
of her imagination to reach
for grand, existential achievements,
drawing on a cunning strength of personality,
pushing through a tangle of ethical contradictions,
and finally getting it to go,
a great black blur against the yellow brick
and indifferent silences of our building.
Afterwards we were told that she had no regrets
for so dramatically annihilating convention
in order to grasp a dream,
and watching her, in this her finest triumph
we all realized that we were in the presence
of greatness, even the poor, shaken, anonymous
pedestrians on Madison Avenue, who might eventually
be persuaded, she had often said,
to take more responsibility
for where they walk.
Spontaneous Human Combustion
Not many would, I think, believe it true
that Auntie might explode while pulling weeds.
Ridiculous! Impossible, they’d say,
there must be other reasons, deeper clues,
as fire trucks careen to intercede,
too late for Auntie, who has burned away.
But let’s not close our minds, it could be true
that high metabolism, added to
a taste for ion-busting alcohol
might cause a spark, a flame, a fireball!
It’s not as bad as swarms of killer bees,
or being mauled by raving chimpanzees,
dismemberment by packs of wild boars,
that open window on the eighteenth floor,
a trash compactor that we might be crushed in.
I’d make the choice: spontaneous combustion.
Dear Oscar
The tomb in Pere Lachaise surrounded,
a murmuring crowd of ardent admirers,
cameras zooming, tiny stones clicking on stone
to anchor scribbled messages
to this imagined friend, the florid celebrity poet,
stopped now, here in this shadowy corner
far from home, the Dublin pubs and lecture halls,
the London prisons.
They seem young, these French groupies,
non-readers, I suspect, unfamiliar with Lord Savile
or Lady Windermere, as they aim their cell phones,
and with blue chalk and black marker
ignore the warning, Please Do Not Deface The Monument,
affectionate tributes scrawled to dear Oscar,
You will shine for us always, with Truth and Courage,
Your Life imitated your Art, How I wish I had known you.
Stepping back then, the full view of the strange sculpture,
an odd creature without category, stretching forward,
leaning out defiantly toward the world,
a bizarre figurehead sailing into the wind,
attended by these faithful pilgrims,
his name obscured by intricate strands of lipstick kisses,
pressed to the cold marble like a wreath of roses.
Dear Oscar we love you.
No Thomas Hardy
Shocked by another birthday, I dreamed of books
I will never read, nearly out of time
for Margaret Atwood and Rupert Brooke,
and all the abstruse Russians. How, through crimes
of idleness that I dared to commit
did I squander a rare and precious chance
to discover the daring, lavish wit
that seemed to glimmer in the dry distance,
and how so fiercely did I remain blind
to breathless, dying fires, year after year,
to be finally defeated, resigned
never to know Count Vronsky or King Lear?
What might be heard through all this glorious burning?
Just the low, plaintive sound of a page, turning.
Greg Tuleja
was born in New Jersey and received degrees in biology and music from Rutgers University. He has worked as a professional musician, piano technician, and flute teacher. Greg lives in Southampton, Massachusetts with his wife, Frances, and is currently the Academic Dean at the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, where he has taught English and music, and for 35 years coached the girls’ cross country team. His poems and short stories have appeared in various literary journals and magazines, including the Maryland Review, Lonely Planet Press, Romantics Quarterly, Thema, and The Society of Classical Poets.