FIRST LITERARY REVIEW - EAST
Dancing will not be allowed – do not even imagine a two-step; do not tap your feet.
Dancing will not be allowed – though, if you’re a billionaire, feel free to board your private jet.
Dancing will not be allowed – skipping on the footpath may be possible next week.
Dancing will not be allowed – and we’re also concerned about unwarranted happiness.
Dancing will not be allowed – the Australian character prefers a planted elbow and laconic beer.
Dancing will not be allowed – try a boutique ice cream from the fridge.
Dancing will not be allowed – but your grandparents may hum a wedding waltz on their anniversary.
Dancing will not be allowed – no jazz hands, please!
Dancing will not be allowed – we’ve already said we won’t fund the arts.
Dancing will not be allowed – but you’re permitted to stand near train tracks to feel the shudder in your bones.
Dancing will not be allowed – improvisations may even lead to imprisonment.
Dancing will not be allowed – there can be no salsa on your chips.
Dancing will not be allowed – please enjoy your cake (without the walk), at the appropriate distance.
Dancing will not be allowed – under no circumstances should you attempt to touch your spouse.
At the hotel, they have sex on two pushed-together double beds. They call them West Egg and East Egg. With the room still icy from the air conditioner, they sleep under West Egg’s expansive duvee. At 3 am she whispers, “Time to migrate”, before they clamber across to East Egg’s satin sheets. One day, while she straddles the Eggs, the beds separate and she falls into the divide. He drags her back by the arms, kissing her bruises. Her skin is mauved in the purple light of the digital alarm clock.
Dancing will not be allowed – do not even imagine a two-step; do not tap your feet.
Dancing will not be allowed – though, if you’re a billionaire, feel free to board your private jet.
Dancing will not be allowed – skipping on the footpath may be possible next week.
Dancing will not be allowed – and we’re also concerned about unwarranted happiness.
Dancing will not be allowed – the Australian character prefers a planted elbow and laconic beer.
Dancing will not be allowed – try a boutique ice cream from the fridge.
Dancing will not be allowed – but your grandparents may hum a wedding waltz on their anniversary.
Dancing will not be allowed – no jazz hands, please!
Dancing will not be allowed – we’ve already said we won’t fund the arts.
Dancing will not be allowed – but you’re permitted to stand near train tracks to feel the shudder in your bones.
Dancing will not be allowed – improvisations may even lead to imprisonment.
Dancing will not be allowed – there can be no salsa on your chips.
Dancing will not be allowed – please enjoy your cake (without the walk), at the appropriate distance.
Dancing will not be allowed – under no circumstances should you attempt to touch your spouse.
I’m the girl who reads the last sentence first.
I’m the boy who reads from the middle of the book.
I’m the girl who saves cherry pips to wish on and chicken wish bones to play jacks.
I’m the boy who saves champagne corks and wonders whether they’re phallic symbols.
I’m the girl who fogs up your car windows and puts her bare feet on the dash.
I’m the boy who wipes his car windows every week until they shine like faux diamonds.
I’m the girl who loves sex on top, underneath and from behind.
I’m the boy who overthinks his relationships, morning, noon and night.
I’m the girl who loves sex from behind, underneath and on top.
I’m the boy who has neglected his lovers even while having sex.
I’m the girl who fogs up the dash and puts her bare feet on the car’s windows.
I’m the boy who scrubs the dash, wondering what that heart-shaped mark could be.
I’m the girl who plays on cherry pips for jack and saves chicken bones to wish on.
I’m the boy who rolls die obsessively and never believes it when he throws a double six.
I’m the girl who reads the first sentence last.
I’m the boy who reads this sentence first.
SEPTEMBER 2014
In the Jewish tradition, the number 18 ("chai" in Hebrew) is significant—it means LIFE. So it is particularly fitting that at this time of the year, the Jewish High Holidays, we have 18 poets whose poems are full of life (yes, even when the topic is death). FLRev extends a wish of long life to poets (and readers of poetry) of every race, creed, religion, and nationality, and to those of the Jewish faith, we say L'Shana Tova.
—Cindy Hochman and Karen Neuberg, Editors
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Night Sky
Canvas.
Starlit painting
reflecting an array
of splintered promises; grand scheme.
Opus.
—Cristine A. Gruber
Cristine A. Gruber, a Southern California native, is a registered caregiver and a devout vegan. Her poetry reflects her view of the human condition in all its pain and beauty. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines, including: North American Review, Writer's Digest, Foliate Oak, Full of Crow, Leaves of Ink, The Old Red Kimono, The Penwood Review, Poetry Now, The Poet's Haven, and The Tule Review. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Lifeline, was released by Infinity Publishing and is available from Amazon.com.
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Her Silence
Her silence
Melts space
Smothers souls
Splays light
Passes in time.
—Zev Torres
Zev Torres' poetry has appeared in numerous print and on-line publications including Estrellas En El Fuego and Maintenant 6. Zev runs the sporadically occurring Skewered Syntax Poetry & Pub Crawls and, since 2008, has hosted Make Music New York's annual Spoken Word Extravaganza.
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Grief so raw
the only way to hold it
is to wrap it in the heart's
black wings, listen,
ears bleeding,
let it sing
itself
whole.
—Peg Robarchek
Peg Robarchek is a published novelist and poet living in Charlotte, NC. Her first collection of poetry, "Inventing Sex," will be published in late 2014 by Main Street Rag. Her poetry has been published most recently in Naugatuck River Review, Prime Number, Blast Furnace, and Iodine Poetry Review.
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With Apologies to Mary Oliver
All I know of trees
Is they make me sneeze.
Same thing goes for flowers,
Countless itching hours.
Then we come to grasses
Allergenic gases
Terrorize my nose.
Not that I oppose
Poetizing Nature—
Who says no debate, sure!
Who says nothing doing,
You, sir, I'm eschewing.
—Fred Yannantuono
Fred Yannantuono’s book, A Boilermaker for the Lady (www.nyqbooks.org/fredyannantuono), has been banned in France, Latvia, and the Orkney Isles. His work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2006. He has been a featured poet for Light Quarterly. His latest book, To Idi Ami I’m A Idiot And Other Palindromes, is due out very soon.
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Apples in Seattle
I smell like an apple
today just for you
only you're not here so I
smell my apple scent
myself and imagine you
smell it instead of I
—Joy Leftow
[Apples in Seattle took First Place Blue Ribbon Prize in the Kitchen Poets 2012, Minnesota State Fair 2012.]
Joy Leftow is a double alumna at Columbia University and has a second Master's from CCNY in Creative Writing. Her honesty and openness may floor or embarrass you but she promises not to bore you. Relish her work at http://joyleftowsblog.blogspot.com
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ABOUT GRAPES & nothing else
Call them by name:
Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Grenache
Pinot Grigio Chardonnay Viognier
In the crush of skin
tartness a bit of bitterness
to seed experience concentrates,
antidote to fog's boundless pressing
to which the astute hand brings structure
works tannin blends signature
Nothing left on vine
for icy imagination's sear
As you leave take note
how the finesse of science melts on chance
how harvest releases
abandonment
—Kit Kennedy
Kit Kennedy has published four collections, including while eating oysters (CLWN WR BKS, Brooklyn) and INTENTIONS (Co-Lab Press, San Francisco). Kit lives in San Francisco and is Poet in Residence of SF Bay Times.
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Sister on the Windowsill
This will go unspoken between us,
just like the prayers of our childhood,
thin smoke rising from our bodies
to the open window.
I used to hold you in the air,
your small legs scissoring the light.
Now you are a woman,
or the spider that strolls across the wall sideways,
black, small.
The stars are dead. We both know it,
but we suck at their fingers, clutch for their light
that hovers around the open window.
The door has been left ajar.
—April Michelle Bratten
April Michelle Bratten currently lives in North Dakota. Her work has previously appeared in Stone Highway Review, THRUSH Poetry Journal, and Waterhouse Review. Her book, It Broke Anyway, was published by NeoPoiesis Press in 2012. Her chapbook, Raw Dogs and Other Metaphors, was published by Maverick Duck Press in 2012. She edits Up the Staircase Quarterly.
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ANOTHER WAY TO SAY YOUR NAME
She read the last card near the hill as men came to stare at the shadow between us. It was this darkness. The cause and the effect of ghosts—what she carried in her hand: an apparent stillness, sunlit contrails, intimacy. The milk-gray sky. Late, her voice
inside the snow. My loveliness remembered north. The meadow
—as if a portrait of a storm—betrayed the dream we carried.
[A FEW FACTS ABOUT THE NAME MAUREEN]
Without intimation I record collusion's temporal heat. So you go wither. Gloam of the hawthorn horizon. Mid-dusk flattened to moss.
DIMINUTIVE, MO
I take the crumpled pages that I love from the book of love and I must love them again and again.
—Maureen Alsop
Maureen Alsop, Ph.D., is the author of two full-length collections, Mantic (Augury Books) and Apparition Wren (Main Street Rag), She is the winner of Harpur Palate's Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry and The Bitter Oleander's Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award. Her recent poems have appeared in various journals including The Laurel Review, AGNI, Blackbird, Tampa Review, Action Yes, Drunken Boat, and The Kenyon Review. Maureen is an associate poetry editor for the online journal Poemeleon and Inlandia: A Literary Journal. She presently leads a creative writing workshop for the Inlandia Institute, the Riverside Art Museum, and The Rooster Moans.
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dark of the moon
for ta
1
I swim
through my teacher's haunted house
while other students on the surface
dangle their hooks
2
we need to discuss
the waves you brought to lunch
& by the way
3
here's my triptych
you clutching a black violin
me standing in a pool of ammonia
usarguingwhiletreadingarazorbath
feel free to rebut the captions
4
this ain't my father's math
the wet graves calling & calling my name
let's say
for dyh
I'm working as fast as I can
insufficiently compensated for my labors
there's summer's death rattle to consider
dawn slower to stretch darkness impatient
talk of hurricanes & christmas
I don't mean to alarm my friends
but I understand why
someone might want this experience to end
pinning my name to plotlines
praying for a dust pile to move
each morning before the soldiers arrive
I say to anyone who's listening it's our nature to suffer
I know this is a lie
—John Amen
John Amen is the author of four collections of poetry: Christening the Dancer, More of Me Disappears, At the Threshold of Alchemy, and The New Arcana (with Daniel Y. Harris). His work has appeared in numerous journals nationally and internationally and been translated into Spanish, French, Hungarian, Korean, and Hebrew. He founded and continues to edit The Pedestal Magazine (www.thepedestalmagazine.com).
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Writer in another town
The mouth ordered using a mundane syllable
choice, a cup of cappuccino—
no sugar, no cinnamon, non-fat milk. Nothing
out of the ordinary like pink
polka dots on Maya's dress stained with tomatoes.
But the clouds of boredom vanished
once the beverage touched
my lips. The mind flooded
with a stream of downpour—
words sailed, pen swam, ideas fluttered,
like fireflies in a jar flying, through
sheets of paper, challenging
the blunt edges to cut through the day.
Same coffee, same recipe, same block.
But I forget, a writer is a different person
on a holiday
—Sweta Srivastava Vikram
[previously published in Journal: The Literary Jewels, 2011]
Sweta Srivastava Vikram is an award-winning writer, two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, novelist, author, essayist, columnist, and educator. Born in India, Sweta spent her formative years between India, North Africa, and the United States. A graduate of Columbia University, she reads her work, teaches creative writing workshops, and gives talks at universities and schools across the globe. Sweta lives in New York City with her husband. Follow her on Twitter (@ssvik) or Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Words.By.Sweta).
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All Ye Need to Know
Beauty is truth.
Strike "is," replace with "might be."
Beauty might be truth.
Strike "might be," replace with "is sometimes."
Beauty is sometimes truth.
Strike "beauty," replace with "truth."
Truth is sometimes truth.
Strike second "truth," replace with "beauty."
Truth is sometimes beauty.
Strike "sometimes."
Truth is beauty.
—Kim Peter Kovac
Kim Peter Kovac works nationally and internationally in theater for young audiences, with an emphasis on new play development and networking. He tells stories on stages as producer of new plays, and tells stories in writing with lineated poems, prose poems, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, haiku, microfiction, and three-line poems, with work appearing in print and on-line. He is fond of avant-garde jazz, murder mysteries, contemporary poetry, and travel, and lives in Alexandria, VA, with his bride, two Maine Coon cats, and a Tibetan Terrier named Finn. www.kimpeterkovac.tumblr.com
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The Phrases
The phrases that used to flit
Unbidden into mind and itch me
To jot them down, then take dictation,
Verse after verse to make a poem,
Now just flicker and burn out
Before I can jot them down and make
Something out of them:
so I do the unthinkable
And write this lament: I am unable
To make a poem.
-George Held
George Held, a 6-time Pushcart nominee, often has work online or in print at such places as The Pedestal, Confrontation, New York Quarterly, and Rattle. His most recent book is CULLING: NEW & SELECTED NATURE POEMS (Poets Wear Prada, 2014).
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Compost
Words and ideas
stew around my brain
like scraps of fertile leftovers
in a steamy compost pile
They sift and brew together
formless
like people on a crowded summer’s lawn
waiting for the concert
ripe with perfumed sweat.
When the music starts, the heap of soil
rich from man’s beginnings
and his ends
begins to dance
Life sprouts once again
A poem is born
—Jean E. Taddonio
Jean E. Taddanio is a Native San Diegan, a retired Hospice nurse, and an ocean lover.
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Dance of the Torches
[from Mirage and Selected Poems]
Far, far away, the flames do play,
Leaping in the far distance.
Across the way, candles turn,
Doing their reckless dance.
Stars glitter, then fall, in the sky;
Hopeless realm of night.
Falling, falling to our green realm,
Into our fading sight.
Memories, mere dreams, rise in the dark,
Blind eye of the mind.
Dreams of death, memories of fleeting love,
All, all of a single kind.
—Jerome Brooke
Jerome Brooke lives in the Kingdom of Siam. He is the consort of Jira, a princess of the lost Kingdom of Nan. He has written Mirage and Selected Poems (Amazon) and many other books.
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Going to San Anselmo
Always it is Sunday with its attendant weight
First the ferry If not raining then the fog
never lifts We know the shore by touch
the piling’s nudge Next the electric train
We pay with tokens wafer thin The conductor
never says Good Day or anything Seven stops
to San Anselmo the school where the boys board
Too far to come home weekends We go for the day
They wait outside on the long white porch
We go directly to the meadow picnic no matter
the weather An hour or more passes before
the little one lets loose my hand goes
to watch his father brother shooting cans
I wait in the field when their father takes them back
—Margo Mensing
[This sonnet is from the poet’s series, which traces the lives and work of Dorothea Lange, photographer, and Maynard Dixon, painter. ]
Margo Mensing has been published in Tupelo Quarterly, Thoughsmith, and The Bridge.
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Je Ne Parle Pas
My daughter says I don’t have an ear
for language, should not speak
in foreign lands, not even
simple words,
no shalom, no scusa
I hold up two fingers,
nod
slip into small places
an insect, insidious
gesturing
my way in and out,
sometimes stinging in
Spanglish
sometimes landing on a
stranger’s arm, fluttering
a kiss to my existence
—Mary Leonard
[Previously published in the poet’s chapbook, The World That Is, published by RedOchreLit.org.]
Mary Leonard lives and works and writes in the Hudson Valley.
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R.I.P
Beyond the grave
they say all is quiet
till you reach out
and poke them with flowers
and sprinkle some salt.
Then they stagger up
from unfinished dreams
of a forever sleep
and mightily bellow … Go away!
and you remember it is time
for the downtown bus
—Reena Prasad
Reena Prasad is a poet from India, now based in Sharjah. She has poems published in English anthology collections and also in online journals: Carty's Poetry Journal, Indian Ruminations, Indian Review, Angle Journal, The Copperfield Review, The Indian River Review, The Rainbow Journal etc.
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Nocturne
When last light is gone,
that nuanced light when stars die,
a maddening cry follows —
From earth?
From the endlessness?
From everywhere and nowhere?
Here comes recovery—
the grief of grasses;
the forgiveness of emptiness.
—Martin Willitts Jr.
Martin Willitts Jr. has 6 full-length collections of poetry, including national contest winner "Searching for What is Not There" (Hiraeth Press, 2013) and over 20 chapbooks including contest winner "William Blake, Not Blessed Angel But Restless Man" (Red Ochre Press, 2014).