burnished black boots
trail click clack stilettos
incendiary hair
set fire to the ghetto
"Slow, baby. Slow.
The cops don't know.
Meet me at the farmhouse
on Redrock Road."
"Kill, Tommy. Kill.
Drill Pretty Phil.
Take the .38
from the Coupe De Ville."
plump cherry lips
graze a sandpaper chin
dame floors the ride
as he climbs on a Schwinn
tires spray the gravel
like a garden hose
Tommy's legs churn
dirty knees to his nose
Pretty Phil chews spaghetti
under bare bulb light
Tommy plugs him twice
pedals back to the night
breathless at the barn
on Redrock Road
Tommy seeks the dame
while the Coupe sits cold
a spark cuts the dark
like a sledge to the chest
fingers lace the gush
but the hole won't mesh
"Why, baby? Why?"
"Tommy, please don't cry."
She pops another off
plants it plumb in his eye
loot in the Coupe
dead men, burned ghetto
dame slips the border
wearing click clack stilettos.
--Mel Bosworth
I visited your grave today.
I stared at the dirt awhile, alone.
I smoked a cigarette and flicked
my ashes on your bones.
I stopped and had a pint
in a bar, tiny as a closet.
The taste of Guiness stout
and the smell of sawdust
were more of a testament to your memory
than a headstone and some dirt will ever be.
It's sad how much memory fades over time,
until only a hint of truth remains--
a tickle, a mere whisper.
I won't be visiting anymore.
If, in some way, you still live on,
it's in my heart, not in the ground.
It's in the smell, the sight and sound
of some seedy little bar
out on the edge of town.
--Jason Young
The Sea
(originally published in the Ballard Street Poetry Journal)
Walking down the street,
I empty my pockets
of the sea I was looking
after for you. Mussels
come tumbling first,
cracking open their castanet
shells on the pavement.
Acres of seaweed and oysters.
Taking a deep breath,
I pour saltwater into the middle
of the road. Islands of people
and cars bob in the newly created sea.
Somewhere amongst this
is an old trawler. You are inside,
sending signals back to a lighthouse
forgotten in a trouser pocket.
--Christian Ward
The Way You Were
Your fine scars were visible only in sunlight--
tiny white lines etched on your arms.
And only when you were naked could I see
the wound across your belly, where you were sewn up
after vengeful men beat you with fists and chains.
I had to look down to see
that your toenail was always black,
from when a cop smashed it with a brick for fun.
He knew no one believes a homeless junkie.
The stigmata of your past few saw (or could decipher).
To others you were responsible and well dressed;
to me you were kind and helpful.
I suppose I always knew, though,
that the past,
like the scars,
would never go away.
That it would always be kind of hanging around,
never letting you out of its sight.
That it would send jealous demons to pull you away from me.
That it had left a slow poison, a time-release capsule in you.
And one day you would succumb and die
the way you were
and not the way you wanted to be for me.
--Anne Rettenberg
I have given up
with prayer,
the naming of things.
Words carve blood
out of air.
Swallowed down
they etch
thin crimson
in the throat,
lie heavy,
unforgiven
in the gut.
I have given up with prayer.
In bleak silence I
float.
--Anne Brooke
When Plague Came to Town
When Plague came to town
gone were her mourning robes
gone her acolytes and their dooming pitch
gone her rats back into her sleeves
gone the fever of her groins
the bursting fruit of her flesh
This time
she brought her jugglers her flags
her brass bands
her flute
her glittering sandman’s dust
and when she crooked her finger
like sleepwalkers we all followed
--Marcelle Kasprowicz
LIVE FROM THE ACCIDENT SCENE
There was fear and someone wanted comfort
and I couldn't give it... I was gulping down
just as much oxygen, and just as quickly,
as the next man or the woman or the child.
It was dark, that kind of knife-edge dark,
like the first breath of day or the
last damping of it. I was feeling myself
in the lives of others and I didn't like it.
I longed to remain divided and hidden.
It was sudden and bleak and not just happening
in my own mind. People were bleeding. There
was terror and pain. And voices howled from
chests like wolves from the deep of woods.
In fact, it was all woods and I was wandering
in it. The tree branches were slapping my
face. The denseness was choking me. Everything
was shadow but my shadow which was me.
--John Grey
The Shadow Tree
Hush. The twilight hour, the fall of day.
Watch. The garden fills
with dark veils.
Listen. Silence is standing
in the onyx light.
Wait. The earth now
masked, the moon awakens.
--David Kowalczyk
A Nightingale's Cry
The world is painted in dark shades of blue
Mountains are bruised by the burden of night
Black clouds veil the pale face of the moon
While shadows emerge from the failing light
Stars are scattered by twilight's oppression
In the distance I hear a nightingale’s cry
Silence is broken by hopeful expression
A rapturous song cracking ebony skies
--Brett Asa Reynolds
About the poets in this issue:
Mel Bosworth lives and breathes in Western Massachusetts. Read more at his website, eddiesocko.blogspot.com.
Jason Young lives in Tennessee.
Christian Ward lives in London where he is a freelance journalist as well as a poet. His work has previously appeared in "Diagram", "Denver Syntax" and other publications.
Anne Rettenberg is Editor of Eat a Peach. She is a psychotherapist in New York City.
Anne Brooke’s fiction has been shortlisted for the Harry Bowling Novel Award, the Royal Literary Fund Awards and the Asham Award for Women Writers. She has also twice been the winner of the DSJT Charitable Trust Open Poetry Competition. Her latest poetry collection is A Stranger’s Table,and her latest novel is Maloney’s Law. Both are available from Amazon. Her work is represented by agent, John Jarrold, and she has a secret passion for bird-watching. More information can be found at www.annebrooke.com and she keeps a terrifyingly honest journal at http://annebrooke.blogspot.com.
Marcelle Kasprowicz was born in France and lives in Austin, Texas. She writes in English and French. In 2001, her poem “House of Bones” won first prize in the AIPF Anthology. Her poems have appeared in several magazines, anthologies and on line. Her first book, Organza Skies, was published in 2005.
John Grey lives in Providence, Rhode Island. He has been published in Agni, Worcester Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal.
David Kowalczyk lives and writes in Batavia, New York. His fiction and poetry have appeared in five anthologies and over sixty magazines in the United States, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, and India. He taught English in South Korea and Guatemala, as well as at several American colleges, including Arizona State. The body of his poetic work can be read at www.poemhunter.com
Brett Asa Reynolds lives in Syracuse, NY with his significant other, three dogs, two cats and three goats.