Poetry Winter 2018 fiction all issues
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Cover Elena Koycheva
Bryce Emley
Asking Father What’s at the End
& other poems
AJ Powell
Butterfly-minded
& other poems
Faith Shearin
Biology
& other poems
Claire Van Winkle
Admitting
& other poems
Sarah W. Bartlett
Summer Cycles
& other poems
Nooshin Ghanbari
Vincent
& other poems
Meli Broderick Eaton
The Afterlives of Leaves
& other poems
Jeddie Sophronius
Refugees
& other poems
Paula Bonnell
In Winter, By Rail
& other poems
Addison Van Auken Waters
Girls
& other poems
Daniel Sinderson
Hallelujah
& other poems
Andrew Allport
All Nature Will Fable
& other poems
Marte Stuart
What an Insult Time Is
& other poems
Matthew Parsons
My Father as an Inuit Hunter
& other poems
Emily Bauer
Gently, Gently
& other poems
Bruce Marsland
A once lovelorn bard’s final journey
& other poems
Beatrix Bondor
Night Makers
& other poems
Isabella Skovira
Lawless Conservation
& other poems
Juan Pablo González
Colombia, 1928
& other poems
Molly Pines
The Pillbug
& other poems
Jamie Marie
On the Lake
& other poems
William A. Greenfield
If You Show Me Yours
& other poems
Bill Newby
Tuesdays at The Seagate's Atlantic Grille
& other poems
Elder Gideon
Male Initiation Rites
& other poems
Joel Holland
Dear Gi-Gi
& other poems
Martha R. Jones
How Lewis Carroll Met Edgar Allan Poe
& other poems
Matthew Parsons
Mountain Roosters
Woke in the morning, weak in the mind.
Grabbed the grain but could not find
one benny hen of my whole damned passel
and begun to think of the last night’s hassle.
The cock on the hill, crowing at two
saw me sipping the morning dew.
Hung up and over, I woke at eight
to find the bastard crowing late.
In the night he stole my good Domineckers.
Mountain roosters—clever peckers.
The Tools
I’m a drunken fool
with a trunk of tools
and not one was stole nor borrowed.
Each one is mine,
both beer and wine,
and I walk the hill tomorrow.
The crest and fall,
the walk and crawl,
the holler calls me waken.
The moss and creatures,
the early peepers;
lost features frost has taken.
Does the man on the mount
make a sound
or does he ride one down around there?
Just let him ride,
of his drink, abide.
Let him drink his pride and founder.
I’m a drunken fool
with a trunk full of tools
and not one rule between them.
When I die, oh Lord,
take my shield and sword,
for I fear the Devil’s seen them.
My Father as an Inuit Hunter
He chews the bones to make the boat.
He sews his jacket down to its leathery top
and looks a lot like a sea dragon,
dragging his pride behind him;
losing himself in the frozen water.
Gone huntin’,
running reindeer down stream
until they collapse like a dream
on a rocky shoreline.
By the time he drags it home,
it’ll be past supper.
He won’t mind
and he’ll skin the deer in the dark
to hang overnight like a roof over our heads,
which we also have him to thank for.
Lord knows he gets shit done.
And I grew up thinking
my father was a native.
Haystack, Highlights, and Silk
Ain’t she a wise woman?
A sly woman.
A know-your-own-shoulders,
sit back and sigh woman.
T-shirt,
hard hands,
right for making a man.
Dang.
She done made me, didn’t she?
There’s more down the line.
They’re thick as thieves.
Haystack and Highlights,
them cackling hens,
I wonder what they believe.
Silk is still sitting,
the prettier she’s getting.
It’d put a good wine to shame.
Haystack and Highlights
would kill a man outright.
But Silk rubs her shoulders
and turns the world over
and surely I knowed her
by the back, so I told her:
Ma’am, I’m obliged
just to sit by your side.
Her face is hiding
but I know she’s smiling
a mile wide and wiling
her whole life away.
Genghis
Jubal
Genghis rings the doorbell
and straightens up his robes
and precious jewels dangle from his ear lobes.
When the door opens, he enters.
He don’t need no invitation ’round here
and ’round here is everywhere, in case you didn’t know.
Genghis has his son,
and his son has his son
and so on and so on
until we reach the now.
Genghis likes culture
and by god, he’s vulture
picking the bones of our holy cows.
We got our own Genghis
like everyone else.
Maybe you’re too afraid
to see the Genghis in yourself.
But if you’re scared of Genghis
remember he’s long gone.
Praise be to our emperor,
the little Jubal Khan.
He’s a ruler of rulers,
giving orders to yard sticks.
He’s playing with oranges
in the floor at the market.
By god, he’s a baby
who’ll soon be a man.
He’ll have no emotions.
He’ll not give a damn.
If he scrapes his knee,
he’ll not cry like a girl.
He may never love,
but he’ll soon rule the world.
And that’s the trade
that old Genghis made
when he conquered the countries
on a quest to get laid.
He don’t talk about feelings.
He don’t say I love you.
He don’t think there’s a God up above.
He might think it’s him,
or the fate of all men,
who don’t know what it is to feel love.
Matthew S. Parsons
is a homesteader from eastern Kentucky. He is an instructor of traditional music at Morehead State University’s Kentucky Center for Traditional Music. Parsons is currently serving as an acquisitions inter of University Press of Kentucky and earning his MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University’s Bluegrass Writers Studio.